The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) is a collection of user interface components and style guide for design patterns for web development. USWDS supports accessibility and mobile-friendly requirements and a consistent experience across government websites. It includes the font
Public Sans
Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head desig ...
.
History
USWDS was created in 2015 as a collaboration between
18F, the
United States Digital Service
The United States Digital Service (USDS) was a technology unit housed within the Executive Office of the President of the United States, Executive Office of the President of the United States and established by Appropriations bill (United States) ...
, and the
10x program. In 2018, the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) mandated that executive branch websites meet the websites standards established by the
Technology Transformation Services
Technology Transformation Services (TTS) is a digital services department within Federal Acquisition Service of the General Services Administration, General Services Administration (GSA) of the United States Government. TTS services and programs ...
department, the department within which USWDS operates.
In 2019, USWDS launched version 2.0 which included a custom font, Public Sans. The Public Sans typeface allows for 9 different line weights. USWDS 3.0 was released in 2022 with support for
Sass (style sheet language)
Sass (short for ''syntactically awesome style sheets'') is a preprocessor scripting language that is interpreted or compiled into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). SassScript is the scripting language itself.
Sass consists of two syntaxes. The ...
, a
CSS pre-processor.
In September 2023, USWDS was in use at 94 agencies and 160 websites with an estimated 1.1 billion page views.
Compliance with website requirements
U.S. government websites are required to comply with multiple accessibility requirements. The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) stipulates that public-facing agency websites have a consistent look, include mobile-friendly versions of paper-based documents, and meet the accessibility needs of people with disabilities. The same year of the IDEA's signing, traffic from mobile devices surpassed desktop devices for the first time.
USWDS also seeks to help agencies meet
Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
In 1998, the U.S. Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information techn ...
compliance.
See also
*
Civic technology
Civic technology, or civic tech, is the idea of using technology to enhance the relationship between people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and commu ...
*
Service design
Service design is the activity of planning and arranging people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality, and the interaction between the service provider and its users. Service design m ...
*
18F
*
Technology Transformation Services
Technology Transformation Services (TTS) is a digital services department within Federal Acquisition Service of the General Services Administration, General Services Administration (GSA) of the United States Government. TTS services and programs ...
References
External links
* {{Official website, https://designsystem.digital.gov/
GitHub repository
E-government in the United States
General Services Administration