Introduction
What the Design System is
The Design System is a collection of reusable styles, components and patterns from the Greek Government.
This guide was created to help designers and developers create friendly, usable and easy-to-use:
- websites
- micro-services - for example, online application forms
- web applications
In a few words, our goal is to provide a seamless experience for all users whenever they use GOV.GR and the services under its domain. We want to offer simple services that are accessible and comprehensible by the entire population.
Who can use the Design System
The Design System is open source and free to use.
We encourage organisations across the Greek public sector and third sector to use the Design System to build accessible online services.
Why use the Design System
Using the Design System means you can:
- save time and money – compared to building new components
- create consistent user experiences across government services
- build accessible, inclusive services – the patterns and components are accessible
- track user behaviour – using built-in tracking HTML attributes with analytics tools
The more closely you follow the Design System, the better and more consistent your results will be. Adhering to these guidelines ensures a cohesive and effective user experience.
Avoiding antipatterns
A common mistake most teams make is that they hurry to implement digital versions of existing bureaucratic processes and practices, without simplifying them first. Additionally, sometimes designers and service teams skip doing user research and assume what users need or want in a situation. Therefore they proceed with the service implementation and become aware of actual user needs and issues after delivering the service. It is easier to resolve an issue during service design than after its delivery.
Of course, partially or inadequately solving problems and needs leads to unsatisfied users. This alone makes it difficult to achieve our goal of providing simple and effective services to users.
Service standard
The Service Standard helps teams to create and run great public services. The context of the user experience and trying to identify how users think about each problem is the most fundamental aspect of the design process. The following principles will help your team create and manage a valuable digital service.
- Understand users and their needs
- Solve a whole problem for users
- Provide a joined up experience across all channels
- Make the service simple to use
- Make sure everyone can use the service
- Have a multidisciplinary team
- Use agile ways of working
- Iterate and improve frequently
- Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
- Define what success looks like and publish performance data
- Choose the right tools and technology
- Make new source code open
- Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
- Operate a reliable service