A brief excerpt from Dan Mall's talk on design systems arguing that interfaces should prioritize cohesiveness across media rather than strict visual consistency. He uses an example from work with United Airlines to show that buttons on kiosks, mobile, and desktop should differ by heuristics and form factor while still feeling like the same brand experience.
These experiences should be cohesive across medium, not necessarily consistent. An example is that we worked with United Airlines last year to help them with a design system and create a design system for them. And one of the things that we realized was a button when you check into the kiosk at the airport is not the same button that you use on your mobile phone or on the desktop when you log in. It shouldn't be. The heuristics are different, the form factors are different, all of those things are different. But it should feel cohesive still. It should feel like it's the same airline that you're checking into, even though we're not using the exact same thing. So consistency across platform or across medium isn't as important, I think, as cohesiveness.
