My knees hurt reading this!

Well done Shaun. Doing your kids proud in more ways than one.

And, some courage to push back against the detractors that are comfortable in the status quo. The status quo being; what worked in the past but has now let the boulder roll back a tad.

Having a jam is 100% the best way to make hours of time vanish.

Well… that, and playing Age of Empires.

Gee! Finally already.

None of this is to complain about what anyone is doing (love your work @andyjones.bsky.social). But the centre have responsibilities and so do departments.

There are attempts to do more by all… but is it enough?

Is the current model and system frustrating enough to drive change @bowsy.co.uk?

Can the centre really be responsible for it all?

And if they aren’t, can departments be responsible for contributing but potentially then not have their needs met?

Someone has to take the charge on this and solve it structurally rather than stealthily. Which is where I think it’s failing.

I love this convo, but I wish it was more than just a convo.

And, it is frustrating. So frustrating. And it should be so frustrating that it’s being actively solved.

But, who is it frustrating for? I’d argue it’s not frustrating enough for anyone within the current system.

Not come across any on GOV.UK (not to say there isn’t any though) but I have seen them in use across front-line NHS digital products for privacy and security reasons, and also for security reasons on internal facing products in gov.

Those terms are certainly eye-rolling-public-sector-jargon.

But, I’m running several successful workstreams on the MoJ Design System. The workstreams are producing excellent work, far from mediocre.

I think the difference is the who, what and how of delivery, rather than what it’s called.

Sounds amazing Shaun, well done to you and your team.

Is this to improve the “handover” of Figma designs to development internally on the GOV Design System team? Or is this to embed Figma into the GOV Design System with accessibility annotations on a central Figma file?

This 👆

We have an amazing Accessibility Specialist that is embedded within the team alongside a fantastic Content Designer, Interaction Designer and Developer. Accessibility is important to the entire team but having an Accessibility Specialist on hand means we can go above mere compliance.

Without calling out any design systems, what does a “best practice” section look like?

Amazing! Well done.

Yes to all you’ve said Dave, thanks for sharing your tips.

And yes to making it as easy for the consuming user as possible. I think that’s definitely key, especially if it comes to a PM prioritising a backlog.

“Why do we need to spend time updating this thing when we already have it”.