Most systems are not hard to maintain because something went wrong. They are hard to maintain because that is how they were designed.

Somewhere along the line, building and maintaining became opposites, and maintenance lost. It became invisible, uncredited work, the thing you do when you have fallen behind. Kyle argues that maintenance is the pivotal early design decision that really counts, and that stewardship is the orientation that makes it possible.

Drawing on a decade of building content and AI systems at scale, this session offers a practical approach to designing for maintenance from the start. Through frameworks for making maintenance legible and measurable, Kyle makes the case that designers who treat stewardship as core to their practice are not just better at shipping. They are the ones whose work survives after shipping, too.