Why do we need a design system?
Having the GOV.UK Design System negates the need for any other UK Government design systems. Or does it?
My colleagues at Ministry of Justice, Nikola Goger and Martin Ford-Downes, have recently written about share and reuse, and more specifically how government could work better if it had reuse at its core. Many points across the writings resonated with my work leading the MoJ Design System, so much so, I thought it would be a good starting point for my entry into the world of writing right here on Medium.
Over the last 12 months I’ve successfully made the case for a centralised team to work on and maintain the MoJ Design System. Whilst I was making the case, a question that persistently come up was: why do we need a design system when we already have the GOV.UK Design System?
So that’s where I’m starting: Why do I think government departments need their own design systems when there’s already the well established and internationally heralded GOV.UK Design System? I’m not the first person to think about this.
Before I get too far in, it’s really important to say that any reasons I think there are for departments to have their own design system is not a criticism of the GOV.UK Design System, or anyone that has worked on it. The work that has been done, and the outcomes achieved, have been hugely transformational for the UK Government and beneficial to so many people, especially the general public who are using, needing, and often relying on the digital services hosted across the GOV.UK website. I’m a fan-boy for sure, through-and-through.
So, if there’s nothing wrong with the GOV.UK Design System, why do departments need their own?
The GOV.UK Design System provides styles, components, patterns and pages for reuse by teams that are creating digital services hosted on GOV.UK. These reusable building blocks help teams create digital services that are accessible, usable, and consistent.
Examples of these digital services would include renewing a passport, paying a parking fine, or checking your state pension age.
Many of the digital services hosted on GOV.UK are transactional and follow a linear-ish path from start-to-finish. Also, many of these digital services are used by people infrequently. Of course there are exceptions to both of these statements.
Whilst this public-facing work is going on, there are also many teams across government departments who aren’t creating digital services to go on the GOV.UK website. Instead, they’re creating digital products (a fancy name for software) that are used internally by administrative or operational staff.
Examples of these digital products could include probation staff updating a person’s licence arrangements, administrative staff processing a lasting power of attorney, or prison staff checking a list of visitors for the upcoming day.
Many of these digital products have multiple and interweaving journeys rather than being transactional and linear. Administrative or operational staff may need to search for a record, view that record, edit that record, link that record to another, and archive or delete that record. All of those tasks may be present within a single part of a digital product, and that digital product may contain many other parts that contain many other tasks.
This means that lots of teams across government are making platforms, products, tools, software (whatever you want to call it) so that administrative and operational staff can work more easily, more accurately, and more efficiently.
Another difference between the services on GOV.UK and the products used internally by administrative and operational staff are that these users are often doing these tasks all day, every day. The needs of someone renewing their passport every 10 years are very different from the needs of a super-user that’s using a piece of software to do their job.
I think the GOV.UK Design System provides a lot of the necessary user-interface components that teams need to create accessible, usable, and consistent digital services that are hosted on the GOV.UK website. I don’t think the GOV.UK Design System provides the necessary user-interface components that are needed to create the software used behind the scenes in government.
At this point, I do think it’s worth pondering the question of why would the GOV.UK Design System contain components for internal digital products? After all, the design system is prefixed by GOV.UK to quite literally represent the domain it’s used for, and this focussed scope is likely one of the reasons for the success of the GOV.UK Design System.
To expect the GOV.UK Design System to contain everything that teams across government could need would mean it needs to be financed and supported to do that.
Most products aren’t backed by unlimited time and money, and that’s why Product Managers are so valued — they prioritise and carve out the most impactful and valuable path that a product can take. And that’s what the GOV.UK Design System has done so well over the past 6 years. It’s been focussed on what it can do to offer the most value. Where it’s not been able to do everything (I feel ridiculous even writing that, like it’s realistic to expect ALL THE THINGS), government departments like the Home Office, Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministry of Justice have all setup their own design systems. It’s been out of a necessity to create the reusable building blocks that their teams need in order to deliver accessible, usable and consistent digital products for use by their administrative and operational staff.
Sounds like we’re headed for silo-topia. Right?
Nikola’s writings on reuse by design talks about the utopia of a connected government where digital infrastructure is centralised, but uses a participatory model of dedicated and incentivised people or teams within departments. When making the case for a centrally maintained MoJ Design System, this utopia has stuck firmly with me. I’m aware of the irony about believing in the vision of a more connected government with underlying digital infrastructure whilst having made the case for what could be viewed as a disconnected and siloed design system.
I’m using the words ‘disconnected’ and ‘siloed’ intentionally here as it’s a view that could understandably be held when asking the valid question: why do we need a design system when we already have the GOV.UK Design System?
A connected government with underlying and centralised digital infrastructure, created and maintained through a participatory model with all departments, is the future that I think we need. But, it’s not our reality now (or maybe it is closer than I think with an emerging ‘digital centre’).
Whilst it’s not our reality now, we must make tracks towards this future where silos are broken down — and I think the case I’ve been making for a centrally supported and maintained MoJ Design System means we can do some of that work which will take us there. Rather than create our own silo and only concentrate on what we’re doing, we will have a team that can work with other departments, contribute to a digital centre, and in some cases, hold up a torch and light the way.
In my next post, I’m going to look at the speed of design systems in government versus the speed of product development. I’ll dig into what problems I think we have, and show what we’re doing on the MoJ Design System to try and solve them.
Reuse by Design is a series of blogs making a case for a share + reuse infrastructure in government and how to implement reuse by design.
Read all blogs: https://medium.com/share-reuse