Digital.gov Guide

Developing and communicating your design

This guide provides tools and approaches for developing and communicating your design.
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Establishing a common visual language

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    Method: Style tiles

    What

    A style tile shows a product’s visual direction using fonts, colors, and other user interface elements.

    Why

    Style tiles help you establish a common visual language between the design team and stakeholders. They also serve as a collaboration artifact that both the design team and stakeholders can use to contribute to the final design direction.

    How to do it

    1. Gather all the feedback and information that was provided during the initial kickoff of the project.
    2. Distill the information into different directions a solution could take. Label these directions based on what kinds of interactions and brand identity they represent.
    3. Create the appropriate number of style tiles based on the defined directions. This approach establishes the specific visual language for the different directions.
    4. Gather stakeholder feedback.
    5. Iterate on the style tiles until you define a single style tile document for the project's established visual language.

    Time required

    1 to 2 days depending on how many rounds of feedback you receive

    Overview Design patterns