U.S. Web Design System

U.S. Web Design System
Founded	2015
Area served	U.S. government and customers
Owner	General Services Administration (GSA); Technology Transformation Services (TTS)
Services	Web design system
URL	designsystem.digital.gov
Commercial	No

The U.S. Web Design System, or 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.

History

USWDS was created in 2015 as a collaboration between 18F, the United States Digital Service, and the 10x program.^[1]^[2] 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 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.^[3] USWDS 3.0 was released in 2022 with support for Sass (style sheet language), a CSS pre-processor.^[4]

In September 2023, USWDS was in use at 94 agencies and 160 websites with an estimated 1.1 billion page views.^[5]

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.^[6] The same year of the IDEA's signing, traffic from mobile devices surpassed desktop devices for the first time.^[7]

USWDS also seeks to help agencies meet Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 compliance.