Lead content design consultant at SPARCK | editor | copywriter | content marketing | writes ghost stories for fun
Design systems can save time and effort, keep designers focused on user needs, and create consistency. But the rules are also there to be broken. I've spent quite a bit of time this week thinking about 'care cards' – those little boxes that appear on NHS web pages telling you what to do, and how to get help. When we're deciding which type of care card to use on a page or screen, the guidance set out in the (amazingly brilliant) NHS Service Manual will always be the starting point. They're based on extensive research and feedback from real NHS patients. But, in practice, it's often necessary to use them in slightly non-standard ways. For example, user research shows that the black and red 'emergency care card' is sometimes too intense and triggering in certain contexts. So, we thoughtfully, deliberately, carefully create a context-specific variation. We document our reasoning. We share our thinking openly, early, and widely. And we test it with patients as extensively as possible. [Image description: An arrow twisting around on itself representing the bending of rules.] #DesignSystems #design #ProductDesign
🐳 Senior UX/Interaction designer
2moBang on. The guidance/design system rationales are backed by thorough research. It serves to provide robust consistency across a product or application. But inevitably many scenarios or contexts are not covered by the guidance or the design system. The goal for an effective design system is not to include every single possible context in the system, but to allow for gentle evolution, provided - and this is the key point - that any rationale is always backed by thorough testing.