Contributing to the design system

Overview

Veteran-facing teams are expected to use design system patterns and components when possible. If existing components or patterns will not work to address needed designs, VFS teams can suggest new components or patterns by going through our Experimental Design process outlined below.

All new components or patterns should go through this process. We recommend starting this process before sharing new designs widely with stakeholders.

This process works best if started before development begins, during the design phase.

When considering if a component or pattern should be added to the design system there are a few criteria that define a “good” candidate:

1. The component or pattern is already being used on more than one page on VA.gov, or the designer can give examples of multiple places the component could be used.
2. The component or pattern is different in more than one major way than existing components in the design system, if the component is only different in color or format, for instance, then it would be better as a variant of the existing component. Note that variants of existing components should also go through this experimental process.
3. Our existing components and patterns will not solve the user problems sufficiently.

Experimental design decision tree and process