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DRAFT Assembling our North Star

David Elisma edited this page Jan 10, 2023 · 5 revisions

In the beginning

To create a north star for the Canada.ca Design System, you will follow these steps:

  1. Identifying our values: What are the core values that should guide the design of the Canada.ca Design System?
  2. Determining our goals: What are the key goals that the Canada.ca Design System should achieve?
  3. Identifying our priorities: What are the most important elements or components of the Canada.ca Design System that need to be focused on in order to achieve our goals?
  4. Creating our north star: Based on our values, goals, and priorities, create a clear and inspiring vision for the Canada.ca Design System.
  5. Communicating our north star: Share our north star with the team responsible for developing and maintaining the Canada.ca Design System, as well as any stakeholders who will be impacted by its use. Use it as a guiding principle to inform design and development decisions, and as a way to measure progress and success.

Our values

  • Accessibility and inclusivity (bilingualism)
  • Equity for writers, researchers, designers and developers
  • Evidence-based design
  • Transparency

Our goals

  • Promoting trust and credibility in government.
  • Increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of government services
  • Improving the user experience of government websites and applications,

Our priorities

  • Systems over goals
  • Answers over information
  • Navigation over features
  • Follow web standards over web trends

Our principles

  • Modular content: We want to use the Atomic Design methodology created by Brad Frost and design tokens brought forth by Jina Anne. We prefer to reuse small components rather than create dozens or even hundreds of unique patterns. Comprehensive testing: Large chunks of frontend code being merged into production can break code written months prior. We have to test the Canada.ca design system with the same level of coverage that are used for applications.
  • Streamlined processes: We want to mirror the Git flow that works well at the application level. We need to break feature branches into smaller, component-sized code chunks. We have to automate error-prone manual processes like updating style guide, creating icon fonts and deploying new code.
  • Exhaustive documentation: With distributed teams across the government of developers, backend developers, designers, marketing managers, ops and various product owners, we have a large audience to serve. We need that whatever we build have a proper documentation that meet each one of their needs.

Our vision

The Canada.ca Design System is a set of guiding principles for designing and developing digital experiences for the public that are accessible, inclusive, and equitable for all users. We prioritize evidence-based design while being transparent, and strive to promote trust and credibility in government through our work. Our focus is on creating efficient and effective solutions that improve the user experience of government websites and applications, and we prioritize systems over goals, answers over information, great navigation over features, and web standards over web trends.

We are committed to building a design system that reflects the diverse needs and experiences of all Canadians, and that supports the delivery of government services in a way that is accessible and inclusive to all.