At HDI, we believe that good design is fundamental to delivering trusted, accessible digital services. Our work across the NHS and wider public sector often involves building systems that must meet rigorous usability and accessibility standards while maintaining a consistent visual identity. However, managing multiple design specifications, such as those from GOV.UK and the NHS, can make development complex and time-consuming. We created the Design System gem (a “gem” is a reusable software package for Ruby on Rails) to solve this challenge: a single, unified tool that makes it easier for teams to build modern, compliant applications without duplicating effort.
Why it matters
The Design System gem makes it simple to create web applications that are fully compliant with GOV.UK and NHS design standards.
What it does
The gem provides ready-made building blocks for consistent, accessible and professional web applications:
- Forms, buttons, tables, navigation, tabs, layouts – all styled automatically to meet each design system’s branding and accessibility requirements.
- Unified API – a simple set of helper methods that work the same way across all brands.
- Accessibility built-in – form builders and components come with best-practice accessibility features.
- Integrated frontend – bundled assets and interactive components using Stimulus for Rails.
The gem takes away the complexity of working across multiple design systems, so developers can focus on building great services rather than wrestling with design details.
Plugins are also being developed for the National Disease Registration Service (NDRS).
For developers who are interested in exploring more go to: https://rubygems.org/gems/design_system
