Since the mid-2000s when I first set up my own website, I’ve said that I’m a self-taught web designer with a bad teacher. I still only know just enough to get by managing bare-bones WordPress installations for my personal and Designers for Learning’s websites.
Aside from keeping them up and running, I’m always on the hunt for style guidance. I think I mentioned the US Web Design System (USWDS) in a post about accessibility. However, in poking around both the USWDS v1.0 website and the new USWDS v2.0 website, there is so much good advice! While designed for US government employees, the two versions are decidedly different. v1.0 is more prescriptive, while v2.0 offers recommendations and rationale as guardrails for making good design choices. In combination, I find the USWDS to be a great resource for both inspiration and guidance.
As noted in the recent launch information for v2.0:
“USWDS is a library of code, tools, and guidance to help government teams design and build fast, accessible, mobile-friendly government websites backed by user research and modern best practices. USWDS 2.0 is an important update to the design system — it introduces a powerful toolkit of new features to help make creating useful, consistent digital services faster, simpler, and more fun.”
Here are some of the many resources I found on both versions of the USWDS site:
- UI Components: Typography, colors, icons, and so much more!
- Color Guidance v1.0: Minimalist and prescriptive
- Color Guidance v2.0: The complete palette of color tokens from which any project can build a theme palette
- Design Principles
- Style Guides: From digital.gov for various government agencies