designesy.org/state-of-complianceedition 1index v1.0contract v0.4.5scored 2026-10-12the leaderboard
State of Design Compliance
Edition 1: 30 sites, one deterministic engine, 45 checks. Every figure here comes from the same data as the public leaderboard; none of it is surveyed, voted on or self-reported.
The cohort
composite scores, weekly run of 2026-10-12
30 sites across five tiers: frontier references, competitors, design-system exemplars, inspiration and high-traffic surfaces, scored against contract v0.4.5 and re-scored every week.
- Sites
- 30
- Median
- 70.0
- Mean
- 72.7
- Grade A
- 1
- Grade F
- 4
Weekly run of 2026-10-12, engine 1.3.0.
The numbers
| Grade | Band | Sites | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 90 and up | 1 | 3% |
| B | 80 to 89.9 | 9 | 30% |
| C | 70 to 79.9 | 9 | 30% |
| D | 60 to 69.9 | 7 | 23% |
| F | under 60 | 4 | 13% |
Where the cohort struggles
category means, batch run of 2026-10-12
Batch run of 2026-10-12: every site's category scores from one engine pass.
The numbers
| Category | Weight | Mean | Sites scored | With a failed check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typography | 18 | 72.6 | 30 | 14 |
| Accessibility | 15 | 60.8 | 30 | 12 |
| Color roles | 12 | 65.9 | 22 | 0 |
| Motion | 10 | 67.2 | 30 | 17 |
| Tokens | 9 | 92.7 | 24 | 2 |
| Interface feel | 8 | 77.5 | 20 | 4 |
| Control polish | 7 | 81.7 | 30 | 0 |
| Page basics | 6 | 88.3 | 30 | 0 |
| Interaction | 6 | 63.3 | 30 | 11 |
| Performance | 6 | Not measured | 0 | 0 |
| Responsive | 3 | Not measured | 0 | 0 |
One system up close: Material 3
m3.material.io · 66.4 · grade D · rank 19 of 27
Material Design 3 publishes its guidance on accessibility, motion and tokens in prose, and ships no public checker for it. Read by the same engine as everything else, m3.material.io scores 66.4, grade D: 10 of 14 among the design systems scored here. Its strongest category is tokens at 100.0; its weakest is interaction at 0.0.
Batch run of 2026-10-12. Composite and rank from 2026-10-12.
The numbers
| Category | Material 3 | Cohort mean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typography | 33.3 | 72.6 | −39.3 |
| Accessibility | 50.0 | 60.8 | −10.8 |
| Color roles | 75.0 | 65.9 | +9.1 |
| Motion | 83.3 | 67.2 | +16.1 |
| Tokens | 100.0 | 92.7 | +7.3 |
| Interface feel | Not measured | 77.5 | Not measured |
| Control polish | 50.0 | 81.7 | −31.7 |
| Page basics | 75.0 | 88.3 | −13.3 |
| Interaction | 0.0 | 63.3 | −63.3 |
| Performance | Not measured | Not measured | Not measured |
| Responsive | Not measured | Not measured | Not measured |
Material's design-token tooling (DSP) was archived in October 2024 and emits no W3C DTCG. The M3 bridge converts its tokens. Re-run the score: /score?url=m3.material.io.
Design systems, ranked
14 systems and documentation platforms · weekly run of 2026-10-12
The spread between the highest and lowest design system is 26.6 points. Among systems other than designesy.org, Atlassian Design System leads at 89.9 (B). The contract grades every system on the same scale, with no curve.
| System | Grade | Score | Cohort rank | Pass | Warn | Fail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Designesy (self-scored) | A | 100.0 | 1 | 38 | 3 | 0 |
| Atlassian Design System | B | 89.9 | 2 | 18 | 6 | 2 |
| GitHub Primer | B | 89.9 | 3 | 25 | 5 | 2 |
| IBM Carbon | B | 82.8 | 8 | 21 | 7 | 2 |
| Roast by AI | B | 81.7 | 9 | 18 | 6 | 1 |
| Designesy AI Studio | C | 74.5 | 11 | 13 | 11 | 1 |
| zeroheight | C | 70.0 | 15 | 19 | 8 | 2 |
| Radix Colors | C | 70.0 | 16 | 15 | 11 | 3 |
| Google Stitch | D | 68.5 | 18 | 7 | 8 | 1 |
| Material 3 | D | 66.4 | 19 | 7 | 10 | 2 |
| Adobe Spectrum | D | 65.1 | 21 | 7 | 8 | 1 |
| Vercel Geist | D | 64.4 | 23 | 7 | 7 | 1 |
| Mozaika | D | 64.3 | 24 | 6 | 9 | 1 |
| Desy Guard | C | 73.4 | not ranked | 19 | 8 | 1 |
How the scores are made
- Deterministic
- The same 45-check engine for every site: regex, token resolution and spec tests against the CSS and HTML a site serves. No language model, no human judgment, no vote.
- Weighted
- 14 categories weighted from 3 to 18, 117 in all, normalised over the checks a site can be scored on. A pass counts 1, a warning half.
- Floors and caps
- Accessibility under 60 caps the grade at C. Six severe failures, such as unreadable contrast, cap the score lower. Anti-slop rules take off up to 20 points; originality credit adds up to 8.
- Open
- Every check, weight and band is on the methodology page. Score any URL at /score, or run the engine yourself with
npx @designesy/score.
Independence and cadence
- No paid placement
- Designesy accepts no payment for scores, method changes or placement. Enterprise work (private scoring, custom contracts, CI) is billed separately, and a customer's public score is computed like anyone else's.
- Weekly
- A GitHub Action re-scores every site on Mondays at 10:00 UTC and keeps the previous week's score, so each change is visible on the leaderboard.
- Yearly
- Each edition of this report adds year-over-year tables: which categories rose, which systems moved. Edition 1 sets the baseline.
State of Design Compliance · edition 1 · compliance index v1.0 · 30 sites · contract v0.4.5 · engine 1.3.0 · scored 2026-10-12 · categories from the batch of 2026-10-12