The design system team is part of one web following our overarching vision of:
Coherent and cost-effective user experiences for Co-op.
The design system team provide the solid foundational tools, resources and standards to enable other teams to work fast — with quality baked in from the start.
We presented at the digital All hands.
This week the Online business area presented at the digital all hands. We outlined the vision and goals for the Co-op online business area that consists of the web platform and enabling teams.
Accessible content, inclusive language
Along with Jo Schofield and Dave Cunningham we’ve been working on a plain English guide to which AAA Web Content Accessibility Guidelines we will cover. We’re also going to be working with Jo on a guide to inclusive language. These pieces of work will inform and feed into the content design guidelines and style guide within the design system.
Content style guide
We have started working on more comprehensive guidelines for content design and how we do content at Co-op. The vision is to have an entry for each element, pattern or point of style we need to consider. Each one will have examples and evidence for why we do things a certain way.
Addressing the components that failed
Based on the work we carried out to test all of our components and foundations against accessibility criteria, we now have tickets and tasks in Jira ready to work through. Once these have been addressed and fixed, our pass % for our current set of components will be close to 100%. Just to repeat — this is just the start.
Component meet up!
We held an open session for anyone that wanted to take part — we asked for everyone to have their frustrations and questions ready for all things related to components, foundations, support, process and anything else related to the Design System.
In total there were 35 issues/questions highlighted. We were able to answer some of these directly in the session, others will help inform our roadmap and there were 2 broad themes that came out:
1. Awareness — how should we communicate changes and updates so that those that want to know, know.
2. Guidance — people want examples and guidance on usage of components.
What’s next?
Next up we’re zeroing in on the fixes for the failing components and getting them pushed out. We’re also starting to plan how we can make the design system more visible for everyone, and looking at firming up the contribution process — watch this space
Contribution and support
And if you find any issues or improvements in the coop-frontend you can raise them on Github.
Thank you as well to Chris Gibbons, Ciaran Greene and Alex hall for compiling these weeknotes.
Another great week.
The design system team
