The design systems we’re building have the power to establish the patterns that either engage or exclude the people who need the services they support. As an example, our team works with traditionally marginalized communities seeking affordable housing and public benefits. As system designers, how can we be more intentional and provide guidelines that remove barriers for people who have historically been excluded?

Principles

Principles, at the highest level, can align stakeholders and team members around a shared set of inclusive values.

Foundations

Foundations like color and type, are where there’s a lot of resources out there to guide folks towards critical design elements like color contrast.

From here on in, it gets more complicated…

Content guidelines

Content guidelines have the power to open our services up to more people by addressing reading level, a supportive voice and tone, as well as inclusive language. How do we make sure we're allowing content writers and strategists to be treated as contributors?

Component guidelines

Component guidelines need to provide accessibility notes on how to ensure things like proper keyboard access for interactive elements, focus states and markup. WCAG guidelines get very technical very quickly. How do we help designers and engineers speak the same language?

Patterns

Patterns capture use cases, such as sign in flows, that are much more about human behavior and can risk causing cognitive and emotional stress if we don't provide additional support. How do we assist the team with repeatable and equitable usage guidelines or "recipes"?

Our team is continuing to learn from the vast resources out there. Some highlights include:

🎙 Systems of Harm by Amy Hupe provides a deep dive into many of the risks involved in creating design systems including how to mitigate bias and provide accessibility training for teams. Do yourself a favor and listen to every episode.

🎛 Patterns via USWDS are a well spring of examples of how to implement inclusive patterns when designing for government services for folks who are the most in need.

I hope to share more soon about specific learnings and resources our team at Exygy creates that might help other teams be more inclusive.