If we ask any design system advocate what are the main reasons to build and maintain a design system, chances are ‘Consistency’ will come up as first or second in their list, together with the ‘A single source of truth’ point, which is pretty much saying the same, with different words. This reasoning is valid but incomplete, and it could lead to a wrong product strategy and overall poor results.

如果我们问任何设计系统的拥护者，构建和维护设计系统的主要原因是什么，那么“一致性”将在其列表中排在第一或第二，同时出现“单一真相”点，这就是说的差不多，只是话不同。 这种推理是有效的但不完整，并且可能导致错误的产品策略和总体较差的结果。

设计一致性是错误的方法 (Consistency in Design is the Wrong Approach)

There are 3 major problems with a ‘consistency focus’ approach:

“一致性焦点”方法存在3个主要问题:

1. It is artificial. When designing for consistency, we are not only ignoring our users but focusing on administrative and maintenance tasks instead. Nothing can’t be further from the real purpose of a human-centred system. Uniformity might look good on paper, but it is boring, disconnected from the real use cases, and most importantly, it is inefficient.

1.是人造的。 在设计一致性时，我们不仅会忽略我们的用户，而且会专注于管理和维护任务。 以人为中心的系统的真正目的无外乎。 一致性在纸上看起来不错，但它很无聊，与实际用例脱节，最重要的是，效率低下。

In his article ‘Consistency in Design is the Wrong Approach’, Jared M. Spool explains it perfectly:

Jared M. Spool在他的文章“ 设计的一致性就是错误的方法 ”中完美地解释了这一点:

The problem with thinking in terms of consistency is that those thoughts focus purely on the design and the user can get lost. “Is what I’m designing consistent with other things we’ve designed (or others have designed)?” is the wrong question to ask.

从一致性方面进行思考的问题在于，这些思想仅集中在设计上，用户可能会迷失方向。 “我设计的内容是否与我们设计的(或其他人设计的)其他东西一致？” 是个错误的问题。

2. It is rigid. A system -to provide us with satisfactory results- needs to be able to change itself, to accommodate and maximise the benefits of constant change. If we aim for consistency above efficiency, we simply are building a monolithic structure with no capacity to respond to the natural product fluctuations: The users needs and behaviour, software and hardware updates or marketing campaigns, to name a few.

2.它是刚性的。 一个为我们提供令人满意的结果的系统需要能够自我改变，以适应不断变化的利益并使之最大化。 如果我们追求高于效率的一致性，那么我们只是在建立一个没有能力应对自然产品波动的整体结构:用户的需求和行为，软件和硬件更新或营销活动等等。

3. It kills innovation. As Oscar Wilde said: “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” A consistent system is something relatively easy to achieve, but building one that works is a completely different story.

3.它扼杀了创新。 正如奥斯卡·王尔德(Oscar Wilde)所说:“生活中只有两个悲剧:一个没有得到一个想要的，而另一个却得到了。” 一致的系统相对容易实现，但是构建一个有效的系统则完全不同。

Achieving consistency is easier than the ongoing ‘sweet’ struggle of creating new and thriving solutions, taking risks, exploring the unexplored and breaking parts of the system to rebuild them again. If we make of consistency our primary goal, we can end up rejecting everything that threads that consistency, and with this, the first thing to die in our process will be newborn ideas.

实现一致性要比正在进行的“甜蜜”奋斗要容易得多，后者正在努力创建新的，蓬勃发展的解决方案，冒险，探索系统中尚未探索和破坏的部分来重新构建它们。 如果我们将一致性作为我们的主要目标，那么我们最终可能会拒绝一切贯彻一致性的东西，由此，我们流程中首先要消亡的就是新生的想法。

Of the 2 tragedies presented by Mr. Wilde, I personally would choose the first one. That’s the one that keeps us moving.

在王尔德先生提出的两个悲剧中，我个人会选择第一个。 那是使我们前进的动力。

连贯性设计 (Design for Coherence)

Consistency and coherence might seem like very similar concepts, but they are fundamentally different. Consistency’s sole purpose is to make the elements of a system uniform. It is about how similar the parts look and feel throughout the entire system. On the other hand, coherence aims for clarity. It is about how well something is understood and if it makes sense. If a system is coherent, it will be clear and easy to understand.

一致性和连贯性可能看起来非常相似，但是本质上是不同的。 一致性的唯一目的是使系统的元素统一。 这是关于零件在整个系统中的外观和感觉有多相似。 另一方面，连贯性是为了清楚起见。 它是关于某种事物的理解程度以及它是否有意义。 如果系统是连贯的，它将是清晰且易于理解的。

Applying coherence over consistency will enable us to build a better, more resilience and flexible system:

在一致性上应用一致性将使我们能够构建更好，更具弹性和灵活性的系统:

1. It is natural. When designing for coherence your focus is not just on building and maintaining the user interface elements, but on the problem you are trying to solve and the people you are trying to help. Everything else will be subject to this. Modifying the user interface won’t be a problem as long as it is properly planned and responding to what Jared M. Spool calls the user’s ‘current knowledge’, which is basically how much the user knows when interacting with your product as a result of the sum of previous experiences.

1.自然。 在设计一致性时，您的重点不仅在于构建和维护用户界面元素，还在于您要解决的问题以及您要帮助的人员。 其他所有内容都将受此约束。 只要适当地计划了用户界面并响应Jared M. Spool所说的用户的“当前知识”，修改用户界面就不会成为问题，这基本上是用户与产品交互时所了解的知识。先前经验的总和。

Funny thing about thinking about current knowledge: when you’re done, your interface will feel consistent. Why? Because it will match the users’ expectations and, where they expect it to behave like something they’ve encountered before, it does. — Jared M. Spool

关于当前知识的思考很有趣:完成后，您的界面将保持一致。 为什么？ 因为它可以满足用户的期望，并且可以满足用户期望的行为，就像以前遇到的一样。 —贾里德·史普

2. It is flexible. Flexibility can take many shapes when working on products/systems, from strategic, to organisational, decision or operations flexibility. Developing a coherent system easy to understand requires covering the wide range of flexibility types to iterate as often and quickly as needed. Luckily, this is aligned with the need of the system to respond to the constant changes mentioned before.

2.灵活。 在产品/系统上工作时，灵活性可以有多种形式，从战略，组织，决策或运营灵活性。 开发一个易于理解的一致系统需要覆盖各种灵活性类型，以便根据需要频繁且快速地进行迭代。 幸运的是，这符合系统对前面提到的不断变化做出响应的需要。

A coherent approach not only will benefit this important aspect of the system, but it will enhance it. How? For instance, instead of trying to get everyone to use the ‘right’ button, focus on facilitating that everyone contributes to the system by enhancing or creating new buttons if needed. By changing the approach, the users (product teams) will go from being the consumers to the main contributors of the system.

连贯的方法不仅会有益于系统的这一重要方面，而且会增强它。 怎么样？ 例如，与其尝试使每个人都使用“正确”按钮，不如着重于通过增强或创建新按钮(如果需要)来促进每个人对系统做出贡献。 通过更改方法，用户(产品团队)将从原来的消费者变成系统的主要贡献者。

3. A fertile soil for innovation. A coherent design system benefits innovation, but this alone is not enough. Innovation alone often fails to align with the strategic needs of the systems or the problems of the users. Having clarity as the primary purpose of a coherence focus system naturally adds boundaries to the space where innovation happens. Wait, but innovation with boundaries? Yes, and this is something good, since it doesn’t limit our capacity to think out of the box and bring new ideas to the tables, but adds a clear purpose to these ideas and brings the focus back to what is important: A system that works and serves efficiently its users.

3.创新的沃土。 连贯的设计系统有益于创新，但仅此还不够。 单靠创新往往无法满足系统的战略需求或用户的问题。 将清晰度作为一致性焦点系统的主要目的自然会为创新发生的空间增加边界。 等待，但是创新有边界吗？ 是的，这是一件好事，因为它不限制我们开箱即用的思想和将新思想带到桌面的能力，但可以为这些思想添加明确的目的并使重点重新回到重要的方面:系统可以有效地为其用户提供服务。

结论 (Conclusion)

Thinking of consistency as the primary goal of your product or design system can result in clean libraries, tidy components and many things feeling and looking the same, but this doesn’t equal a good experience for your users. Instead, we should design for coherence, tailored solutions for multiple and diverse use cases and advocate for the right balance of flexibility and automation. I believe this is achievable by looking at our systems through the lenses of more scalable human-centred solutions, and this is where coherence comes into play.

将一致性视为产品或设计系统的主要目标可能会导致干净的库，整洁的组件以及许多感觉相同的外观，但这对于您的用户而言并不等于好的体验。 代替， 我们应该针对一致性设计，针对多种多样的用例量身定制的解决方案，并倡导灵活性与自动化之间的适当平衡。 我认为，这可以通过以更具扩展性的以人为中心的解决方案来查看我们的系统来实现，而这正是一致性发挥作用的地方。

Thank you for reading!

感谢您的阅读！

This article was written with Writty. ✏

本文是用Writty撰写的。 :铅笔: