Header, footer and service navigation standardisation
Aligned header and navigation components across services, improving consistency, accessibility and reuse.
Quick overview
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Role:
Senior Interaction Designer
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Company:
The Planning Inspectorate
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Company:
Standardised header, footer, and navigation implemented as a single source of truth.
Components are now reused across services, improving consistency and reducing future design debt.
Provided clear guidance for teams, aligning design, accessibility, and brand standards.
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Impact:
Situation
Headers, footers, and navigation were inconsistent across Planning Inspectorate services. There was no agreed standard, external and internal systems differed, and updates to the GOV.UK Design System were not being consistently applied.
Task
Standardise header, footer, and service navigation components across all services.
Align with GOV.UK Design System, brand guidelines, and accessibility standards.
Ensure reusable guidance and components could be adopted by developers.
What I did
Reviewed GOV.UK Design System guidance, internal style guides, and Planning Inspectorate brand guidelines.
Created a design mood board of header variations for internal discussion and feedback.
Shared designs with the interaction design community and iterated based on input.
Discussed proposals with Head of Brand to align on approval and feasibility.
Drafted working guidance and added reusable components to the Planning Inspectorate pattern library.
Collaborated with developers to ensure components were implemented and adopted.
Impact
Standardised header, footer, and navigation implemented as a single source of truth.
Components are now reused across services, improving consistency and reducing future design debt.
Provided clear guidance for teams, aligning design, accessibility, and brand standards.
Who I collaborated with
Interaction design community (internal).
Head of Brand.
Developers implementing components.
Service teams across Planning Inspectorate.
Reflections
Early collaboration with both design and development teams accelerates adoption.
Sharing work-in-progress with a design community can improve decisions and surface edge cases.
Standardising patterns early prevents fragmentation and reduces future technical and design debt.