GOV.UK Design System vs NHS Design System
GOV.UK デザインシステム / NHSデザインシステム
GOV.UK Design System comes from Platform Screen Languages and NHS Design System from Public Design. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
GOV.UK Design System
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The design language the UK government's Government Digital Service publishes and maintains for public services. Everything runs in one undecorated left aligned column set in GDS Transport, and the green button keeps square corners while carrying a darker green band along its bottom edge, dropping by exactly that depth when pressed. Whatever holds keyboard focus turns yellow with a black rule under it.
NHS Design System
The NHS system makes urgent health information and services calm, direct and consistent through plain language, strong focus states and tested clinical patterns.
| GOV.UK Design System | NHS Design System | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 2012– | 2016– |
| Family | Platform Screen Languages | Public Design |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | One undecorated left aligned column, with almost no boxes and no shadows / A green button with square corners and a darker green band along its bottom edge, which drops by that exact depth when pressed / Whatever holds keyboard focus turns yellow with a black rule drawn beneath it / Type sizes step coarsely through 48, 36, 24, 19 and 16px with nothing in between | NHS blue and generous white space / Large headings and short paragraphs / Callouts for warning and care advice / Visible focus and simple forms |
| Best used for | Rebuilding a government or public service form as a single left aligned column asking one question per screen · Making the current focus position unmistakable for someone operating the service by keyboard alone | Health guidance under stress · Appointments, triage and patient services across devices |
| Type | One sans serif only, in five fixed sizes with nothing in between. Headings are bold and body text sits at 19px. | Use familiar words, short sentences and descriptive link labels. |
| Composition | Hold the content to a single narrow column and align every element to one left rule. No multi column layouts and no boxes, because a horizontal rule is the only break between topics. | Present the immediate answer first, then steps, exceptions and help. |
| Material | Colour is tied to meaning and never used decoratively. Buttons keep a corner radius of zero and gain their thickness from a band of their own darker shade along the bottom edge. The focus state is always yellow ground with a black underline. | Use blue for identity, neutral surfaces for reading and semantic colors only when needed. |
| Caution | Tidying the look by rounding button corners or thinning the borders on form inputs deletes the two signals this style relies on entirely, the pressable thickness and the position of focus. | A blue header alone does not create trust. Content clarity, tested patterns and accessible states are the system. |