“Language is just not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, guidelines, and meanings; it’s a completely coherent system certain to context and habits.” — Kenneth L. Pike
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The net has accents. So ought to our design programs.
Design Methods as Residing Languages#section2
Design programs aren’t element libraries—they’re dwelling languages. Tokens are phonemes, elements are phrases, patterns are phrases, layouts are sentences. The conversations we construct with customers develop into the tales our merchandise inform.
However right here’s what we’ve forgotten: the extra fluently a language is spoken, the extra accents it might assist with out shedding which means. English in Scotland differs from English in Sydney, but each are unmistakably English. The language adapts to context whereas preserving core which means. This couldn’t be extra apparent to me, a Brazilian Portuguese speaker, who discovered English with an American accent, and lives in Sydney.
Our design programs should work the identical method. Inflexible adherence to visible guidelines creates brittle programs that break underneath contextual stress. Fluent programs bend with out breaking.
Consistency turns into a jail
The promise of design programs was easy: constant elements would speed up improvement and unify experiences. However as programs matured and merchandise grew extra advanced, that promise has develop into a jail. Groups file “exception” requests by the a whole bunch. Merchandise launch with workarounds as a substitute of system elements. Designers spend extra time defending consistency than fixing person issues.
Our design programs should study to talk dialects.
A design dialect is a scientific adaptation of a design system that maintains core ideas whereas creating new patterns for particular contexts. Not like one-off customizations or model themes, dialects protect the system’s important grammar whereas increasing its vocabulary to serve completely different customers, environments, or constraints.
When Good Consistency Fails#section3
At Reserving.com, I discovered this lesson the arduous method. We A/B-tested the whole lot—coloration, copy, button shapes, even emblem colours. As knowledgeable with a graphic design schooling and expertise constructing model fashion guides, I discovered this surprising. Whereas everybody fell in love with Airbnb’s pristine design system, Reserving grew into an enormous with out ever contemplating visible consistency.
The chaos taught me one thing profound: consistency isn’t ROI; solved issues are.
At Shopify. Polaris (https://polaris-react.shopify.com/) was our crown jewel—a mature design language excellent for retailers on laptops. As a product staff, we had been anticipated to undertake Polaris as-is. Then my success staff hit an “Oh, Ship!” second, as we confronted the problem of constructing an app for warehouse pickers utilizing our interface on shared, battered Android scanners in dim aisles, carrying thick gloves, scanning dozens of things per minute, many with restricted ranges of English understanding.
Activity completion with normal Polaris: 0%.
Each element that labored fantastically for retailers failed fully for pickers. White backgrounds created glare. 44px faucet targets had been invisible to gloved fingers. Sentence-case labels took too lengthy to parse. Multi-step flows confused non-native audio system.
We confronted a alternative: abandon Polaris fully, or educate it to talk warehouse.
The Beginning of a Dialect#section4
We selected evolution over revolution. Working inside Polaris’s core ideas—readability, effectivity, consistency—we developed what we now name a design dialect:
| Constraint | Fluent Transfer | Rationale |
| Glare & low gentle | Darkish surfaces + gentle textual content | Cut back glare on low-DPI screens |
| Gloves & haste | 90px faucet targets (~2cm) | Accommodate thick gloves |
| Multilingual | Single-task screens, plain language | Cut back cognitive load |
Outcome: Activity completion jumped from 0% to 100%. Onboarding time dropped from three weeks to 1 shift.
This wasn’t customization or theming—this was a dialect: a scientific adaptation that maintained Polaris’s core grammar whereas creating new vocabulary for a particular context. Polaris hadn’t failed; it had discovered to talk warehouse.
The Flexibility Framework#section5
At Atlassian, engaged on the Jira platform—itself a system throughout the bigger Atlassian system—I pushed for formalizing this perception. With dozens of merchandise sharing a design language throughout completely different codebases, we wanted systematic flexibility so we constructed straight into our methods of working. The previous mannequin—exception requests and particular approvals—was failing at scale.
We developed the Flexibility Framework to assist designers outline how versatile they wished their elements to be:
| Tier | Motion | Possession |
| Constant | Undertake unchanged | Platform locks design + code |
| Opinionated | Adapt inside bounds | Platform supplies good defaults, merchandise customise |
| Versatile | Prolong freely | Platform defines habits, merchandise personal presentation |
Throughout a navigation redesign, we tiered each factor. Emblem and international search stayed Constant. Breadcrumbs and contextual actions grew to become Versatile. Product groups might instantly see the place innovation was welcome and the place consistency mattered.
The Resolution Ladder#section6
Flexibility wants boundaries. We created a easy ladder for evaluating when guidelines ought to bend:
Good: Ship with present system elements. Quick, constant, confirmed.
Higher: Stretch a element barely. Doc the change. Contribute enhancements again to the system for all to make use of.
Greatest: Prototype the perfect expertise first. If person testing validates the profit, replace the system to assist it.
The important thing query: “Which possibility lets customers succeed quickest?”
Guidelines are instruments, not relics.
Unity Beats Uniformity#section7
Gmail, Drive, and Maps are unmistakably Google—but every speaks with its personal accent. They obtain unity by shared ideas, not cloned elements. One further week of debate over button coloration prices roughly $30K in engineer time.
Unity is a model consequence; fluency is a person consequence. When the 2 conflict, facet with the person.
Governance With out Gates#section8
How do you preserve coherence whereas enabling dialects? Deal with your system like a dwelling vocabulary:
Doc each deviation – e.g., dialects/warehouse.md with earlier than/after screenshots and rationale.
Promote shared patterns – when three groups undertake a dialect independently, overview it for core inclusion.
Deprecate with context – retire previous idioms by way of flags and migration notes, by no means a big-bang purge.
A dwelling dictionary scales higher than a frozen rulebook.
Begin Small: Your First Dialect#section9
Able to introduce dialects? Begin with one damaged expertise:
This week: Discover one person stream the place excellent consistency blocks activity completion. May very well be cellular customers combating desktop-sized elements, or accessibility wants your normal patterns don’t deal with.
Doc the context: What makes normal patterns fail right here? Environmental constraints? Person capabilities? Activity urgency?
Design one systematic change: Give attention to habits over aesthetics. If gloves are the issue, greater targets aren’t “”breaking the system””—they’re serving the person. Earn the variations and make them intentional.
Check and measure: Does the change enhance activity completion? Time to productiveness? Person satisfaction?
Present the financial savings: If that dialect frees even half a dash, fluency has paid for itself.
Past the Element Library#section10
We’re not managing design programs anymore—we’re cultivating design languages. Languages that develop with their audio system. Languages that develop accents with out shedding which means. Languages that serve human wants over aesthetic beliefs.
The warehouse employees who went from 0% to 100% activity completion didn’t care that our buttons broke the fashion information. They cared that the buttons lastly labored.
Your customers really feel the identical method. Give your system permission to talk their language.
