Our Design Principles

All digital products will be designed with the user at the heart of every decision.

When our internal complexities are pushed onto the user, it results in a lack of engagement and distrust in wider services.

At least 1 in 5 people in the UK have a long term illness, impairment, or disability. Many more have a temporary disability.

We will make our services simple enough so that most people can use them without needing to adapt them for accessibility.

Accessible services work better for everyone. They are often simpler, and easier to use and understand.

There is no need to use a very formal style. Picture your audience and write as if you are talking to them.

People want to find the information they need quickly. We will avoid using 20 words if we can say the same thing in 10.

We will choose words that are easy for everyone to understand, and avoid jargon.

We have developed standard components and process models that can be reused to save time, build trust with consistency, and further ensure that we comply with accessibility.

Where it is not possible to use existing components, we will ensure that new designs are also reusable.

We will ensure that our websites comply with best practices so that they can be used by everyone.

For users to receive a consistent user experience we need to retain control of all areas of our website.

Where a third party portal is necessary, it will conform to our principles and design patterns.

Confidence in services is negatively affected when users are confronted with multiple logins and portals that do not reflect the Canterbury style.

We’ll use agile techniques to design and deliver small chunks of functionality at a fast pace.

When you spend a long time planning and designing large services with technical complexity, users spend longer without useful functionality.

We’ll focus on ‘minimum viable products’ and avoid ‘gold plating’ them.