U.S. Web Design System wins

Press, Tech, Government Memos & Mentions:

• Jeb Bush loves the Web Design Standards!

• The Next Web, "U.S. Government releases new design standards to its websites can stop being so ugly" September 2015

• GovFresh, "USDS publishes design standards for federal government websites" September 2015

• The Atlantic, "Making the U.S. Government’s Web Design Less Sucky" October 2015

• Wired, New Standards Could Make Government Sites Less Worthless" October 2015

• DigitalGov "Introducing the US Web Design Standards" October 2015

• User Testing "U.S. Web Design Standards: Guidelines for a Better User Experience"

• Responsive Web Design Podcast, Episode 64, November 2015

• GCN, "What’s Next for U.S. Web Design Standards" November 2015

• Government Executive, OPM Unveils Overhaul of Federal Hiring Site USAJOBS, February 2016

• Federal News Radio, "FEDtalk: Improving Design Standards Across Government" March 2016

• FCW, "18F wants to experiment with design standards" May 2016

• Adobe Public Sector Blog "Creating better forms faster: New tools for Experience Manager Forms align with U.S. Government Web Design Standards" August 2016

• Design Taxi, "For Designers: A Free Open Source Guide For Creating Beautiful User Experiences" September 2015

• Newsy, "Is This The End Of Unsightly Government Websites? We Hope" September 2015

• The Big Web Show with Jeffrey Zeldman, "136: Designed With Web Standards: USA! USA!" October 2015

• Brad Frost, "Anatomy of a Pattern in a Pattern Library" August 2016

• CIO Digital Services Playbook

  • "Use a simple and flexible design style guide for the service. Use the U.S. Web Design Standards as a default"

• Cited in White House OMB memo on "Policies for Federal Agency Public Websites and Digital Service," November 2016

  • 18. Ensure a Consistent Look and Feel Across Websites Common user interface components and visual styles help create a seamless transition across an agency’s websites and improve the ease with which the public can find information. Federal Agencies should ensure a consistent look and feel of their public facing websites and digital services. The U.S. Website Design Standards, found at https://playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/, is available to all agencies to assist with this process.

Speaking Engagements and Thought Leadership:

• IA Summit "(Not ) Designing for Ourselves" Carolyn Dew & Colin MacArthur, March 2016

• Clarity, "Turning the Ship: Living Design Systems in the Federal Government", Maya Benari, April 2016

• AIGA DotGovDesign Conference keynote "U.S. Web Design Standards" Erica Deahl, May 2016

• STL Design Week, "Crafting a Federal Design System, Brad Nunnally, October 2016

• GoodGovUX, "Draft U.S. Web Design Standards," Will Sullivan, October 2016

• CENDI "Understanding the Users of Today and Tomorrow" workshop, Will Sullivan, November 2016

• Content Strategy Delaware "Government CS Summit: Changing the Digital Face of Government" Angela Colter, November 2016

Numbers:

(As of November 2016)

Google Analytics

Below are statistics on event tracking on various buttons from dates that range from September 1, 2015 to November 15, 2016:

• 2,466 clicks on "Download the code and design files"

• 2,294 clicks on "Downloaded framework" (previous homepage event for downloading the code base)

• 1,250 clicks on "Downloaded design files - Illustrator"

• 772 clicks on downloaded design files - Sketch

• 431 clicks on downloaded design files - EPS

• 212 clicks on downloaded design files - OmniGraffle

npm

uswds npm package statistics (updated daily) as of November 15, 2016:

• 165 downloads in the last day

• 728 downloads in the last week

• 3,222 downloads in the last month

Github

More than 100 agencies and sites use the Web Design Standards

These include vets.gov, code.gov, and the NASA Style Guide Draft.

676 Pull request merged into main code base

Pull requests let you tell others about changes you've pushed to a repository on GitHub. Once a pull request is opened, you can discuss and review the potential changes with collaborators and add follow-up commits before the changes are merged into the repository. When work has been completed and approved, the code gets merged into the main code base.

**Why does it matter? **We use number of pull requests merged as an indicator of engagement with the community using the Standards and of the impact and usefulness of the Standards to that community. If the people using the Standards didn't find them useful, they would bother spending their valuable time providing feedback. We can also show that this is a health indicator on the product getting consistent support and improvement.

298 Watchers

"Watching" a code repository is part of how users keep track of any given code base on Github. If a user is watching a repository, you will receive notifications for all discussions.

• Issues and their comments

• Pull Requests and their comments

• Comments on any commits

Why does it matter? If a user is watching a repository, we use that as a proxy for people who are actively involved and interested users and contributors to supporting the code base.

3,462 Stars

Stars are a way to keep track of repositories that you find interesting. Any repositories you were previously watching can be found on a user’s stars page and creates another method for keeping track of updates to any starred repo.

Why does it matter? This indicates overall exposure to the development community and their interest, and our ability to broadcast out new updates and releases.

475 Forks

Forks of a repository allows users to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project. Most commonly, forks are used to either propose changes to someone else's project or to use someone else's project as a starting point for a user’s own ideas.

Why does it matter? We can see what an impact the USWDS are having because organizations are forking the repo and using it on their own projects to create impact around the world.