Tools for creating beautiful online experiences for the American people
Built and maintained by U.S. Digital Service and 18F designers and developers, this resource follows industry-standard web accessibility guidelines and reuses the best practices of existing style libraries and modern web design. It provides a guide for creating beautiful and easy-to-use online experiences for the American people.
UI Components
Common web interactions (buttons, forms, navigation, etc.) with reusable and downloadable code
Visual Style Guide
508-compliant colors and typography designed to bring consistency to government web design
How to use these tools
Use a little, use a lot, use it all.
Here’s how the web design standards may help you:
Designers
From prototyping to designing a look and feel, use these tools for designing websites and digital services. Create experiences for your users that feel consistent across government platforms.
Developers
Stand up quick prototypes or build whole websites. Save time and development cycles by reusing the code to efficiently update and launch government sites that are accessible and consistent for your users.
Principles
The U.S. Web Design Standards are designed to create better online experiences for the American people. These are the principles guiding these tools:
Make the best thing the easiest thing
The web design standards are designed to provide designers and developers easy-to-use tools to most effectively deliver the highest quality government websites to the American people.
Accessibility out of the box
These standards were built with a priority on 508 compliance and ADA accessibility at every step of the design process. From colors to code, everything you need to meet high standards of accessibility are baked into these tools.
Design for flexibility
These patterns and designs are made to be easily adaptable. These guidelines encourage consistency over uniformity, to give the American people a sense of familiarity and ease when navigating government services, while also allowing for customization of each agency’s unique flavor.
Reuse, reuse, reuse
We reviewed, tested, evaluated, and repurposed patterns, code, and designs from dozens of government and private sector style guides to make use of tried-and-true best practices.
Examples
A few samples of the web design standards at work:
Contribute
The web design standards alpha was created during the summer of 2015 by designers and developers at the U.S. Digital Service and 18F. We will continue to maintain and update these resources as we learn what works best for the people we serve.
Help us make it better.