We need your help

As people working in the federal space we all need to advocate for inclusive experiences1. We’re all learning together, but some specific actions you can take today are:

  • Include team members with diverse experiences and perspectives.
  • Emphasize impact over intent.
  • Uncover inequities and disparities through disaggregation.
  • Lead with community voices and needs — emphasize people over process2.
  • Practice transparency and integrity in your actions.
  • Challenge your own assumptions and biases. Recognize that there is no universal baseline for experiences.
  • Own your responsibility to ensure that the research we conduct is as inclusive and representative as possible.
  • Engage with non-profits and community groups to identify, recruit, and fairly compensate diverse users.
  • Consider who benefits and who may be harmed with each design.
  • Ask yourself who is invited and who is absent from the discussion.
  • Identify who is best positioned to help us understand how to make our solutions better.

The patterns are a start, but we need your help keeping these patterns current as design practices and DEIA norms evolve. We encourage you to continue to share your knowledge and expertise.

Contribute to USWDS

Learn how to contribute to USWDS. Agencies interested in participating in this process — or simply in learning more about the design system — can join us in our public Slack channel (#uswds-public), for our monthly calls, and in the digital.gov communities of practice. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

Citations

  1. A quick guide to inclusive design. (August 15, 2022) Retrieved on August 19, 2022, from https://medium.com/the-u-s-digital-service/a-quick-guide-to-inclusive-design-be4931ef2c ↵

  2. Communicating with and about people with disabilities. (February 1, 2022) Retrieved on August 19, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/materials/factsheets/fs-communicating-with-people.html ↵

Credits

Illustrations created using humaaans, a CC0 (public domain) design library.

Disclaimer: Links to nongovernment sources are made for educational or source citation purposes only, and do not represent an endorsement of the organizations by the General Services Administration. The General Services Administration does not assume any responsibility for the content, operation, or policies of other entities’ websites.