GOV.UK Design System Day 2

On Thursday I did a there-and-back to Liverpool for Design System Day 2. For once I was just attending rather than speaking, so got to just enjoy the talks and ambience.

There were a range of talks between design systems and more general design.

I arrived late for Greg Macoy’s starting talk—from this I learned about the NHS COREPLUS5 framework

Design allergies

Chikako Masuda of the Japanese government spoke about getting over organisational allergies to design through relatable activities like lego themed workshops. She also spoke about the idea of government as startup. I wondered about the balance between startups—which are work hard for high returns—and stewards—the usual role of government which has a longer timeframe. I think there are talks to be done about how to have a startup mentality without burning people out.

The boundaries of content design and design systems

The panel of content design talked about some of the real challenges in the role. I was particularly taken by Helen Nickols’ example of a prisoner being tagged as being a gang member could be positive and even life-saving if it meant they were not put in a cell with a member of a different gang, but could also cause terrible consequences if added incorrectly and following the prisoner around.

Performance analysis and design systems

I got some practical tips from Duncan MacGruer’s talk on performance analysis and the Scottish Government Design System, from using unexpected errors as a scent to do user research, to being thoughtful about untracked users. I particularly liked that points were both tool-based and communication based: both supplementing cookie-based tracking like Google Analytics with non-cookie analytics like Plausible (showing for them usually that 20% are not tracked), and reminding teams that results are directional, particularly with smaller user groups where some untracked people could be significant.

Design systems big and small

I also liked the two angles of design systems from the large (Michael Palmer of the the BBC) to the small (Alessandra Bailana of the ‘scaleup’ GoGubble). Palmer spoke of creating a 'wall of shame' to show the lack of consistency across the various systems in the BBC. He also spoke of advice he was given that "product managers need to be the person at front with a piece of paper" - lead on narrative and let other people be bought in but also able to support. He had realised that design systems are not just a product, but also a community and a way of working. With this in mind, the BBC design system needed to do 4 things: demonstrate value, measure performance, influence behaviours, and improve satisfaction and usability. Palmer also acknowledges the challenges of experiments not being cleared down properly and leaving ghost components that weren't confirmed as being accessible. This was also an interesting comparison with Bailana's talk of going for systems rather than things being pixel perfect, in that while 'done was better than perfect' (to quote Sheryl Sandberg) I did wonder about the later knock on effects of tidying up quick decisions. This is something I have encountered myself in government, where quick ideas get misconstrued as far more rigorous than they every were just because they were there first.

Design systems and the climate emergency

Finally, Ishmael Burdeau spoke about design systems and the climate emergency. He offered a load of interesting references such as the 'carbon cake' (thinking about things such as legacy systems and contact centres as well as the cloud) and a whole load of reading materials. The one thing that did strike me when reading the Web Sustainability Guidelines (positioned to be to digital sustainability standards what WCAG is for digital accessibility standards) was that is sometimes reached into other areas such as accessibility without really properly acknowledging it was going into these other areas. I think a lot about how there are tradeoffs between sustainability, accessibility, security and even plain old cost. One example is how the banning of plastic straws in fast food outlets for sustainability reasons made life difficult for those that need them. And as much as sending paper letters is not sustainable or always accessible, it does mean that there are fewer cybersecurity risks (albeit some identity theft risks if people move house or have their letterbox broken into). With that in mind, I'd love to see some talks from experts in these respective areas try to discuss the tradeoffs and how the standards need to complement each other while remaining true to their profession's expertise and standards of excellence.

Come for the talks, stay for the community

Finally, it was nice to get to see a few design folk and design people—even if I was a bit tired. I do not have the travel stamina that I did 2 years ago!