What is Graceful Degradation? — UK Software Development Guide
Direct Answer
Graceful degradation is the principle that a system should continue to function with reduced capability (rather than failing completely) when some components fail. A website that degrades gracefully might still display content even when JavaScript fails. An API that degrades gracefully might return cached data when the database is temporarily unavailable rather than returning a 503 error.
Graceful-degradation in the UK
Graceful degradation is directly relevant to UK FCA operational resilience requirements. FCA PS21/3 requires firms to define impact tolerances and maintain services within those tolerances during disruption. Graceful degradation means a payment processing system that cannot reach the fraud scoring service should: (1) proceed with elevated risk controls rather than reject all payments, or (2) queue payments for deferred processing — never simply fail with no fallback. NHS software: graceful degradation during network outages (displaying cached patient data with a clear "data may not be current" warning) is safer than displaying nothing. WCAG 2.1: progressive enhancement is the accessibility-focused version of graceful degradation.
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