Categorizing Discrepancies: Visual vs Functional

During an interface inventory, teams uncover two distinct categories of discrepancies:

1. Visual Inconsistencies (Shallow Debt): Elements that do the exact same thing but look slightly different (e.g., three primary buttons with 4px, 6px, and 8px border radius). These can be consolidated quickly by unifying onto a single semantic design token.
2. Functional Redundancies (Deep Debt): Four different squads built four separate modal dialog components, each with different keyboard shortcuts, focus trapping bugs, and mobile behaviors. Consolidating functional debt requires careful architecture, code review, and QA regression testing.