How do I build a design system that other people can actually work in?

Using a design system and building one are different skills, and it is easy to assume knowing the first means you can do the second. Building for others means thinking not about your own work but about everyone who will rely on what you make, and that shift is genuinely hard. Not understanding it yet is not a gap in talent; it is just a craft you have not learned. A system others can work in is built on clarity and empathy. Every component needs an obvious purpose, a clear name, and rules simple enough that a stranger can follow them without asking you. The best test is not whether it works for you but whether someone else can pick it up and use it right without your help. Build for the person who was not in the room when you designed it. Start small. Take one component and document it so completely that a new teammate could use it correctly from your notes alone. Then watch someone actually try, and see where they stumble. Their confusion will teach you what building for others really means. That loop, build, watch, fix, is how you learn to make systems people can live in.