Q&A from the February 2024 USWDS monthly call

[sarah-sch]

At the February 2024 monthly call we talked all about the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) component lifecycle and how to contribute a component. Below we’re sharing questions and answers from the event. Feel free to discuss further here if you don’t see your question answered.

Questions from the February 2024 monthly call

• How does the team manage all of the discussions that are occurring in GitHub? Is there a regular standing meeting to work through discussions and prioritize?
• Do you see the “experimental phase” in the component lifecycle as being a way that departmental design systems can contribute what they have built back into USWDS?
• Is there a timeline component idea in the works?
• Are there any existing proposals that we are moving through our new process?
• Any advice on getting traction for a discussion after it's been posted?
• Dark mode is not a component, but what would we call it in a design system or in our design system?
• Is there a directive to use USWDS “common components” across departments and agencies?

[sarah-sch]

Q: How does the team manage all of the discussions that are occurring in GitHub? Is there a regular standing meeting to work through discussions and prioritize?

A: There’s not a standing meeting for this right now, but there may be one in the future. Currently, we have standing meetings to discuss community-contributed GitHub issues and pull requests. The discussions conversation may end up an addition to that meeting, or it may need to become a separate meeting. We'll find out.

If the community at large expresses a lot of interest in how we run these kinds of processes, we can share more in a future monthly call.

[sarah-sch]

Q: Do you see the “experimental phase” in the component lifecycle as being a way that departmental design systems can contribute what they have built back into USWDS?

A: Yes. We're hoping to enable more contributions. Our hope with this experimental phase is to provide an effective way to contribute that's less burdensome for everyone than what we’ve been doing thus far. We’d like to use this experimental phase to gain the evidence we’d need to eventually graduate early-stage ideas or components in use elsewhere into stable USWDS components that have broad applicability. We very much hope it becomes an efficient way to get the work other teams have developed into USWDS.

[sarah-sch]

Q: Is there a timeline component idea in the works?

A: We don't have anything that's a timeline, exactly. The process list component could potentially be used as a timeline, though. Please feel free to test out our new proposals process by contributing the idea for a timeline component.

[sarah-sch]

Q: Are there any existing proposals that we are moving through our new process?

A: We've been updating the discussions board by migrating existing issues and requests into discussions, and converting things that we've been working on already into this new process. None of these converted proposals are finished yet, nor approved or assigned. The ones in the proposals repo are furthest along in the process right now.

[sarah-sch]

Q: Any advice on getting traction for a discussion after it's been posted?

A: On USWDS’s side, our core team expects to be checking in and contributing to discussions. We also hope to highlight select proposal discussions in monthly calls and in our newsletter. We may find more ways to promote existing discussions as we try this out.

Communities of practice that you engage in may be interested in supporting these discussions. Consider reaching out to government-wide communities such as Digital.gov and communities within your own agency to contribute.

[sarah-sch]

Q: Dark mode is not a component, but what would we call it in a design system or in our design system?

A: Dark mode is not something we support or are building into USWDS, but it's a common question. People are beginning to expect display preference options. You might call dark mode a “browser preference” or something similar.

Currently, USWDS’s efforts are more focused on creating a high-contrast mode than they are on creating a dark mode since a dark mode would require a bit of a shift in how we apply theme tokens.

Developers can currently generate separate light and dark mode themes. If you figure out how to do that, we would welcome the contribution to USWDS.

Anyone interested in this topic may want to consider this discussion on support for user preferences.

[sarah-sch]

Q: Is there a directive to use USWDS “common components” across departments and agencies?

A: This is a complex question. Based on the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, its supporting memo, “Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience,” and the federal website standards, agencies should use USWDS. Our current challenge is building a common understanding around what it means to use the design system.

When we get questions like this, we encourage teams to establish continuity across federal government sites and services by using the components we've identified as "core components" (the gov banner and the identifier) and by using USWDS design tokens. Of course, this is only a starting point, and these recommendations aren’t rigorously codified.

It’s important to mention that the recent memo on “Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience” notes the federal website standards. One of the actions in that memo is to begin the process of updating these standards, which is happening now. While these standards are distinct from USWDS, the design system will work to make it easier to meet them.