The Buckeye UX (BUX) team at Ohio State is excited to embark on a journey of sharing insights, updates and best practices about our design system with our community. This blog will serve as a comprehensive resource for anyone involved in designing and developing websites at Ohio State. We're thrilled to introduce a transformative initiative aimed at revolutionizing how we develop and maintain digital experiences across the university.
Why We Built Buckeye UX (BUX) for Ohio State Websites
In today’s digital landscape, users demand consistency, accessibility and a seamless experience. BUX addresses these needs by providing a unified framework for developing websites at Ohio State. By standardizing components and design patterns, we eliminate the inconsistencies that arise when different teams create disparate websites and applications across the digital ecosystem. This approach not only enhances the user experience but also streamlines development and maintenance, making our websites more sustainable and easier to update.
BUX is a living, breathing framework that encompasses the Ohio State brand and UI patterns, all while accommodating for the university’s accessibility guidelines. It is designed to ensure consistency, improve efficiency and foster collaboration across all teams. Whether you are a designer, developer, or in a marketing and communications role, our design system aims to provide you with the tools and guidelines necessary to create cohesive, compliant and user-friendly experiences.
What BUX Enables
Consistency and Familiarity
Our design system ensures that every website feels familiar and intuitive, reducing the learning curve for users. Whether it's a new project or an existing one, the system provides a cohesive look and feel that aligns with our brand identity while having consistent global elements, like headers, footers and navigations.
Collaboration and Inclusivity
We've designed this system with input from a diverse group of developers and designers across the university. It’s a living project that welcomes contributions from anyone in our community. Any Ohio State faculty, staff, or student is welcome to contribute to BUX. This collaborative approach helps us grow the system by adding components, templates and other assets for our community.
Efficiency and Maintenance
Web frameworks and libraries often have bloated code and outdated designs. Our design system strips down assets to their essential components, resulting in lightweight, easy-to-maintain code. BUX greatly reduces front-end workload and simplifies the process of keeping your code current with ongoing project releases. Updates are centralized, ensuring that everyone benefits from the latest improvements.
What This Blog Will Cover
The primary goal of this blog is to keep users and adopters of BUX informed and engaged with the design system’s evolution. Here, you will find a variety of content, including:
- Updates and Announcements: Stay up to date with the latest changes, enhancements and new components added to the design system.
- Tutorials and How-To’s: Demonstrations and guides with examples of component and template use, as well as implementing BUX in your web projects.
- Best Practices: Tips and recommendations to ensure you are making the most out of BUX.
- Case Studies: Real-world examples of how teams across our organization are adopting BUX for their websites.
Exploring Parts of the BUX Design System
We have an exciting lineup of topics designed to give more detail on, including:
- Component Library: Deep dives into our reusable components, how to use them and customization tips.
- Design Tokens: Understanding the building blocks of our design system and how they enable scalable and consistent design.
- Accessibility: Ensuring our design system supports inclusive design practices and meets accessibility standards.
- Tools and Resources: An overview of the tools and resources available to help you integrate our design system seamlessly.
Meet the Team
Our dedicated team of designers and developers is at the heart of this initiative. Each member brings unique expertise and passion to the project, ensuring our design system is robust, user-friendly and adaptable. We believe in open communication and collaboration, so feel free to reach out with questions, suggestions or contributions.
- Jeff Borisch, Accessibility
- Jeff has been the primary digital accessibility tester for all the components, verifying they are usable by all audiences.
- Moe Buckley, Development
- Moe leads the development of BUX, playing a vital role in bringing the design system to life with technical expertise.
- Kelli Chesler, Design
- Kelli is a creative force behind the design system, designing components and templates with UX and brand consistency considerations.
- Eva Dale, Design and Accessibility
- As a co-founder of BUX, Eva works closely with both designers and developers to create components and ensure the system meets the university’s digital accessibility standards.
- Arnell Demasco, Development
- Arnell is a contributor to the BUX source code, building out core foundations and components to the system.
- Pierre Fortier, Development
- Pierre is a contributor to the code development of the component library, updating documentation and releasing updates to the design system.
- Ryan Judy, Strategy
- Ryan helps lay the design system's roadmap, ensuring it aligns with our organization's strategic web channel goals.
- Pat Kastner, Design
- Pat’s creative direction for the design system ensures BUX templates and guidelines align to brand standards and guidelines.
- Leeta King, Design
- Leeta is a contributor to BUX, bringing a UX and technical perspective to the design system.
- Michael Lee, Development
- Michael is an additional contributor to the code and works with Pierre through the process of releasing updates to the design system.
- Hanna Pittman, Design
- Hanna contributes with user interface design, working closely with both designers and developers to help create appealing visual components.
- Karin Samoviski, Design
- Karin’s attention to detail and passion for design excellence ensure that our design system remains cutting-edge and user-centric.
Join the Conversation
We encourage you to get involved and share your feedback with us. Your insights are invaluable in helping us improve and evolve our design system. Feel free to leave comments, ask questions and suggest topics you’d like to see covered in this blog.
Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey. We look forward to sharing our knowledge and learning together as we continue to build and refine our design system. Stay tuned for more insights, tips and updates in our upcoming posts!