Our Approach

One of the main problems we were facing when exploring customisation was how to strike the right balance between “enough customisation to get the feeling just right” and “too much customisation, this is tedious”.

Too little Customisation

If we look at this example of only being able to customise text color and primary color, headspace would have a difficult time getting this survey looking like it’s part of their product. 

The corner radii, the text field colors, shadows, icons, everything would be locked in as Arch designed it and wouldn’t allow for any expression.

Too much Customisation

On the flip side, offering customisation of every single little element defeats the purpose of a simple to use tool meant to save time.

In this concept we tried allowing customisation of every little detail from padding within input fields, corner radii of every component, to icon sizes in different components.

Striking that balance

The way we’ve found works best to get you the most suitable amount of customisation without an overwhelming amount of setup is by taking a token based approach.

Not only is this a great way to keep setup for users simple and straightforward, it also has the neat side effect of allowing for theming & supporting light & dark appearances. 

Here are a few examples of question types that have been customised using the token system. 

Testing it out for yourself

We used this Figma file to test the token system. Go ahead and duplicate that file if you want a sneak peak into how it works.

Just follow the instructions in the file and let us know if you have any additional feedback for us!

Things we’re still dreaming of

One thing that we’re still exploring is how we might allow your design systems to fit directly into Arch. 

This way if you were to make changes in your system, like changing a corner radius token for example, you wouldn’t need to update this value in your Arch settings.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this round of testing, it's greatly appreciated!

Next up we’re looking into question types and how the whole survey experience will work. Updates on that in the coming weeks :) 

Cheers,

Clemens