The BUX design system offers a centralized source of truth for UI components, templates and guidelines, helping teams build consistent, scalable digital experiences at Ohio State.
But how did we arrive at these elements? What drove our thinking and our decisions? Our digital design principles aim to answer these questions and provide a guide for designers to follow as they expand on BUX’s core components to create custom solutions for individual units.
When most people think of the humble website accordion—for those that ruminate on web design at all—it’s often dismissed as a space-saver or filler component. Ideal for hiding away content you don’t want seen when users first land on your site, but by itself nothing impressive or noteworthy. But the accordion deserves more credit. With thoughtful use, it becomes a versatile, user-friendly tool that supports both content organization and accessibility.
In the College of Arts and Sciences, we embarked on a journey to align our websites to the Ohio State brand standards by integrating the Buckeye UX (BUX) Design System. We used an iterative process to allow us to gradually adopt the BUX look and feel across our extensive portfolio of sites, ensuring a seamless transition without the need for a complete redesign.
In 2023, two Office of Advancement websites, Alumni Association and Giving, were redesigned with the BUX design system in order to enhance the user experience and accessibility. The websites launched in February 2024, marking a key milestone in the office’s digital strategy.
Imagine for a moment that assembling a webpage is like cooking. Our BUX design system provides all the ingredients, but it’s up to content creators to use those ingredients in the best order to create a final culinary masterpiece. This blog goes over four core tenets for assembling a webpage with BUX components that clearly communicates to (and directs) site users.
Our websites have started shifting from disparate solutions to cohesive, user-friendly experiences that feel like our scarlet-and-gray home. How we use visual elements is important to us because we want our audiences’ experiences to look and feel like Ohio State, no matter how they interact with us.