Launching a Design System can be intimidating and after a few nail biting sprints the 0.1 beta version was released on 20 May. A big thanks to both the Design System and Web Publishing Platform Product teams for their hard work over the last few weeks.

This marks an important milestone, which sees our the Design System come into fruition and provides a tangible product that we can put in front of our user community.

Design System Beta

What’s in the 0.1 release?

Bringing a Design System out is a marathon not a sprint.

–Stratos Filalithis, Head of Website and Communications

Our 0.1, beta version is minimal. Our intended approach is small, gradual, continuous growth and improvement. 
Moving forward, this will allow us to roll out the Design System in parts as new components become available and as we continue to get feedback from our community.  

We have started with 4 core pieces of the Design System:  

• how to use it 
• how to use components (cards and buttons for now) 
• design principles
• how to stay consistent with the Communications and Marketing brand

This initial content is available to start being used by all and we welcome feedback, which you can submit through the feedback form. This can be found on the beta banner or in the contact us section of the site. 

In addition to this, components documented in the Design System are being regularly updated to reflect any markup and usage changes as the components evolve.

What’s going to happen in future releases?

Testing and feedback

We want to hear from our community, therefore we will be initiating user testing. You can help us by providing feedback on the Design System, pointing out any problems or potential fixes. This will help us to tackle the right aspects in our future releases.

Improving components

We want to start focussing on improving the components that already exist within the Design System and identify new components to bring in. In the 0.1 release of the Design System, we did not introduce any new components, but this will change in our next phase as we make this a focus. We want to be able to ensure that what we have contained within the Design System is truly helping create those outstanding digital experiences. 

Processes and governance

Establishing processes and governance is an essential aspect of a Design System, especially where changes are being proposed or requested from outside the Design System’s core team. Therefore, as part of the 0.2 release, we will be bringing together the Design System’s change advisory board (CAB) for their inaugural meeting on 14th June. The CAB will help us encourage scalability and creativity, while maintaining design, usability and consistency.  

Navigation

For those of you who might have spotted, the Design System site’s different navigation bar, this is still in the early stages of testing. It is a beta version, being proposed through the Web Publishing Platform Project and is awaiting going through the CAB process.  Therefore, as yet, it is not ready for release.

In my next blog, I hope to update you on the key role of governance in shaping changes and additions to the Design System.  

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.