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Summary
The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) was created in 2015 by a collaborative team at 18F and the U.S. Digital Service. USWDS is a product of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Services and is maintained by the Office of Solutions. The mission of the USWDS is to shape the future of government digital services, and its vision is to have empowered and supported digital service teams and familiar and easy-to-use digital services. The USWDS aims to help government teams align, design, and keep their websites and services up to date.
FAQs
What is the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)?
The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) is a free, open-source design system created for federal government websites. It’s a toolkit of design principles, UX guidance, and pre-built components that helps government teams design and build accessible, mobile-friendly, and consistent digital experiences.
USWDS aims to simplify the process of creating government websites, ensuring they are user-friendly, meet accessibility standards (like Section 508), and align with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA).
What are the key benefits of using USWDS?
USWDS offers many benefits for government teams:
- Compliance from the start: USWDS is built to meet federal accessibility and website requirements out-of-the-box.
- Proven design solutions: Provides readily available, tested design patterns for common UI elements, ensuring consistency and familiarity for users across government websites.
- Team alignment: Establishes a common design language and shared goals, fostering collaboration between designers, developers, and content creators.
- Community support: A large and active community of government web professionals offers support, shares solutions, and contributes to USWDS development.
- Efficiency and cost savings: Reusing components and pre-built elements saves time and resources, allowing teams to focus on delivering services.
What are USWDS design tokens?
Design tokens are the foundation of USWDS’s visual design. They are predefined values for colors, spacing, typography, opacity, and other style elements. These tokens ensure consistency and make it easier to manage the design system. Instead of using arbitrary values for styles, developers and designers reference these tokens, promoting a unified look and feel across government websites.
How do I get started with USWDS?
There are resources for both developers and designers:
- Developers: Download the USWDS code from GitHub or install it with npm. Learn about design tokens, components, and utilities.
- Designers: Start prototyping with Sketch or Adobe XD templates. Familiarize yourself with the design principles and component UX guidance.
You can adopt USWDS incrementally. Begin by integrating the design principles, then progressively incorporate UX guidance and finally start using USWDS code.
What is the USWDS maturity model?
The USWDS maturity model is a framework for gradually adopting and integrating the design system into your project. It consists of three levels:
- Level 1: Integrate design principles: Focus on understanding and applying the USWDS design principles to guide your project’s design decisions.
- Level 2: Follow UX guidance: Utilize the UX best practices and research provided for each component, even if you are not yet using USWDS code.
- Level 3: Use USWDS code: Implement the design tokens, components, and utilities in your project for a fully integrated USWDS experience.
How can I contribute to USWDS?
USWDS is an open-source project and welcomes contributions from the community. You can contribute in several ways:
- Report bugs or issues: Help identify and fix problems with the design system.
- Share research or guidance: Contribute your knowledge and experience to improve USWDS documentation.
- Propose new components: Suggest new design patterns and UI elements to be added to the system.
- Participate in the community: Join the USWDS Slack channel and engage in discussions and knowledge sharing.
What are USWDS patterns?
USWDS patterns are recommended solutions for common design challenges that go beyond individual components. They offer guidance and best practices for implementing complex features or workflows. They are documented collections of components, content and interactions with the goal of accomplishing tasks. For example, “Create a user profile” is a pattern that leverages various USWDS components to provide a streamlined user experience for profile creation.
Where can I find more information about USWDS?
The official USWDS website (designsystem.digital.gov) is a comprehensive resource with detailed documentation, guides, and the latest news about the design system. You can also find the USWDS community on Slack (#uswds-public) and GitHub.