GoFundMe Heart Checker

Design Systems + AI

AI changed how I think about building tools

GoFundMe's design system, Heart, is entering a new phase with AI, and tooling is where I'm seeing some of the biggest changes.

Our team has always built tools, mostly for engineers and documentation. But now that AI has dramatically lowered the cost of building software, I'm able to create things that previously would've required a dedicated engineering project.

Heart Checker is a good example.

It's a Figma plugin I built that works like a design linter. It scans a design and reports how many components come from Heart versus other libraries, then checks six additional quality signals: text styles, Auto Layout, colors, spacing, border radius, and effects. Whenever it finds a one-to-one match with a Heart token or style, it offers a one-click replacement. It can even flag problematic color pairings, making it easier for brand and product teams to apply color consistently.

The feature I'm most excited about isn't any individual check. It's what this enables.

As AI becomes a bigger part of turning designs into code, the quality of the design matters even more. Better input leads to better output. Heart Checker helps improve the quality of a design before AI ever sees it.

Just as interesting is how quickly it came together.

A few years ago, a plugin like this would've been difficult to justify. It likely would've required months of engineering time or a significant budget if outsourced. Instead, I built it in a few days.

Even if Heart Checker eventually becomes obsolete, that's okay. The cost of experimenting has dropped so dramatically that the value isn't just in the tool itself. It's in being able to identify a problem, build a solution, learn from it, and move on.

That's one shift AI has created for design systems. Better tooling is no longer reserved for the biggest companies with the biggest budgets. It's becoming accessible to everyone.