There is a whole spectrum of co-design approaches. From adding additional touchpoints with users, through to users designing for you. Listen to how Imran led the GOV.UK Design System community in pushing co-design to its limit. What was the process? What were the results? What did the community gain from it all?

1. Co-design by
community

2. Imran Hussain Community Designer,
GOV.UK Design System
@ImHuYorks imran.hussain
@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk

3. GDS
Chapter One: fitting everything together
Chapter Two: obstacles, schmöbstacles
Chapter Three: learning, iterating, improving

4. Chapter One:
fitting everything
together

7. GDS
The GOV.UK Design System is a suite of tools
that help teams in government quickly build
usable, accessible services for GOV.UK

8. GOV.UK Design
System

9. GDS
There are more than 900 live services using the
GOV.UK Design System, and it’s found in more
than 2,300 repos on GitHub

10. £22m
saved in 2023 (Jan-June)

11. Contributions

12. The design system
needed contributions
to continue to scale
and expand its user
base.
@timpaul

13. @Amy_Hupe
@ignaciaorellana

14. Community backlog

15. Contribution criteria

16. GDS
Working Group

17. GDS
Has anyone ever submitted
anything to their design system
or design team?

18. GDS
👋 Enter Imran

19. So, everything is
great right?

20. GDS
Our team shrank to 4 people.
Ignacia & Amy moved on to work their magic
on other products.

21. BUILDING THE GOV.UK DESIGN SYSTEM

23. The community

24. When I joined, I asked
to speak to
community members
about the Design
System. I got...
@timpaul

25. GDS
Our community is primarily designers and
developers building services in government

26. GDS
We gathered some of their thoughts on the
contribution process, and on engaging with the
design system

27. GDS
Users are concerned that they don't have
enough expertise to contribute a component or
pattern. Even commenting on conversations is
intimidating

28. GDS
Users are worried that they would ask a silly
question or something that has been asked
already on slack

29. GDS
The decision making process in the Design
system is not clear to users. This includes
priorities of the team and what happens to
contributions

30. GDS
Users didn't know how to formally contribute
but assumed there was guidance on it

31. GDS
Some users mentioned that they struggle to
keep up to date with the changes to the Design
System and what the team are working on.

32. The process felt a bit
disjointed, like a
folded story.
@timpaul

33. GDS
Where to start?

34. Was I qualified to
lead this
community?
Talking to my
mentor helped
@timpaul
@claragt

35. work to your
strengths

36. Chapter Two:
obstacles,
schmöbstacles

37. GDS
I spoke to people across government in
follow-up conversations and developed a
community strategy

38. GDS
Strategy:
● build trust and demonstrate consistency
● create safe space and approachability
● run exciting events that add value
● be open about roadmaps and decisions
● actively invite feedback and act on it
● make the most of the knowledge in the
community

39. Values

40. GDS
Open
Transparent about our processes,
decision-making and ability to
take on feedback

41. GDS
Inviting
Actively encouraging users to get
involved in our work and
decision-making

42. GDS
Transfer of
power
Hand over decision-making
power and create a sense of
autonomy across Gov

43. GDS
Educational
Upskill & build capability across
government (sustainably)

44. Events

45. GDS
We are being more open about our work:

46. GDS
We are getting the community more involved in
our decisions:

47. GDS
We run an annual
conference to
celebrate the Design
System’s birthday.

48. GDS

49. Comms

50. GDS
Weekly
engagement
Release
based
Thought
leadership
Adding
personality
Design System call Mailing list Design notes blog ‘Behind the scenes’
stories

51. Co-design
projects

52. GDS
What does co-design or
co-creation mean to you?

53. GDS
I wanted the community have more of a say in
what goes into the design system.

54. GDS
I created an alternative
way for the community
to get something into
the Design System.

55. Task-list
component

56. GDS
The community decided to make this
component a priority themselves.
I helped bring them together.

57. GDS
Around 400 people
from over 150
organisations have
helped design a
component together

58. GDS
I ran two workshops.
Gathering user needs
and prioritising the
work.

59. GDS
How do we design together, online, around the
world, during a pandemic, with different
platforms?

61. GDS
I created a steering
group that helps
make key decisions
and plan events.

62. Success 🎉

63. GDS
The collab updated
guidance on the
task-list pattern early
on.

64. Hopes & reality

65. GDS
I hoped:
● the interesting events keep the community engaged
and draw a wider audience
● by contributing as a large group, more people
understand our contributions process
● more contributions go into the design system
● people learn from each other

66. GDS
It was really hard work. No-one I knew had ever
co-designed a component online before

67. GDS
A lot of time was taken
up getting people up
to speed

68. GDS
Every workshop was bespoke and had to get
through a lot of work

69. GDS
I felt that I wasn’t using
the task-list steering
group to their potential

70. work to your
strengths

71. GDS
I seemed to have become the community lead,
product manager, delivery manager and
workshop lead for this collaboration

72. GDS
I became a singular contact point for more
information

73. GDS
I’m bad at saying no to exciting work.

74. Maps in Services

75. GDS
We kept hearing about maps at our Friday
Design System Chat and decided to do
something about it.

76. GDS
We are trying to make
maps more consistent
for the public sector.

77. GDS
We ran our first
workshop, where over
90 people attended
from across the public
sector.

78. GDS
There was a show &
tell and we collated
user needs from the
group.

79. GDS
I put together a
steering group that is
planning the next
steps.

80. GDS
We ran a fun session where we all looked for
maps best practice and started to analyse it.

81. GDS

82. GDS
The maps collaboration has such a wide remit.
We’ve set ‘creating a set of map design
principles’ as a short-term goal.

83. GDS
There is no real best practice when you create a
sector-wide set of principles. Fail fast. Trial, test
and iterate.

84. Chapter Three:
learning, iterating,
improving

85. Refining the
co-design projects

86. We designed a
community landing
page to encourage
collaboration
@timpaul

87. GDS
GDS
I created a briefing
for each co-design
project for new
members

88. We did more targeted
work with the steering
group to move the
project along

89. GDS
In doing so, we used the skills of the
collaborators to the full extent

90. We worked together to
create a prototype

91. GDS
It has been through the governance process
and will be added to the design system any
time now

92. GDS

93. GDS

94. GDS
Before
After

95. Learnings

96. Co-design is
community

97. GDS
You can definitely try to do too much

98. GDS
Use the people you have to their strengths

99. GDS
Stick to a set of core values

100. What the team is
taking away

101. We are more open
about our work
@timpaul

102. We share our
roadmap openly
@timpaul

103. GDS
GDS
We designed a page
to encourage
discussion around
current & upcoming
work

104. GDS
We’re updating our regular contribution process

105. GDS
We’ll work on things that are valuable to lots of teams
We’ll involve a larger, more diverse group of people
Contributors will be clearer about what’s happening
We’ll spot problems earlier

109. GDS
Next: choosing one of our prioritised things,
and trialling the model

110. Q&A