🧱Minimalist & Reusable Building Blocks

Not full solutions!

Overview (What to aim for)

We cannot predict the future, or predict all scenarios to build a full stack, end to end digital solution - for example, a website, portal, or app - that fully meets the needs of a diverse and dynamic population. Unfortunately, a full solution approach assumes just one solution will fit everyone or just one entity/institution can build for all.

Instead, this principle necessitates technology architects unbundle problems and solutions to core, modular, minimalist, and reusable building blocks with open protocols and specifications to connect them. These building blocks should create high trust and low costs for other public and private entities when re-used. The ecosystem can then combine these building blocks to create many solutions fit for purpose (akin to lego blocks). Minimalism and modularity also allows each building block to be extensible to build or add on later as future technologies and capabilities evolve.

This ensures simplicity of the DPI, low cost/risk of building, ease of scalability/adoption, higher innovation around the DPI, evolvability to address future use cases, and avoids hard-coding and building of costly monolithic full stack solutions.

Maximalism creates complexity, high risk, and low innovation; cannot deal with future advancements; and most importantly drives exclusion.

Technical Tools (How to achieve it)

• Design of minimalist components, protocols/specifications that do NOT form a complete solution, but perform one function well.

• This means DPI architects should not overspecify data fields, forms of data, modes of use, types of authentication, etc.,

Societal Outcomes (Why it matters)

• Feasibility & Success of digital intervention

• Privacy

• Combinatorial innovation

• User-centric solutions

• Financial sustainability (lower cost of the DPI)

• Evolvability & Extensibility