DUSWDS: Your Agency's USWDS-Aligned CMS Solution

Takeaway: Federal agencies face significant challenges in creating modern, accessible, and user-friendly websites, falling short of accessibility standards and user expectations. DUSWDS is a solution to these challenges. It is a USWDS-aligned Drupal distribution specifically designed for federal agencies to meet accessibility requirements, improve user experience, and save time and resources on development and maintenance.

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Federal agency websites are the primary interface between the federal government and its citizens. However, many of these critical digital platforms fall short of modern standards and user expectations.

Recent reports paint a sobering picture:

• According to the DOJ's first accessibility report in over a decade, one in ten federal websites is not fully accessible to people with disabilities.
• The Federal IT Dashboard reveals that only 30% of federal websites have no detectable accessibility issues.
• Less than 20% of federal websites use the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS), leading to inconsistent user experiences across agencies.
• Only about half of federal websites are mobile-friendly, despite the increasing prevalence of mobile device usage.
• Customer satisfaction with federal digital services has reached historic lows, highlighting the urgent need for improvement.

These statistics show that federal agencies struggle to deliver accessible, user-friendly, and compliant digital experiences. The consequences affect millions of Americans who rely on these websites for essential information and services.

Enter the Drupal U.S. Web Design System (DUSWDS)—a groundbreaking solution designed specifically to address these challenges. As the first and only CMS starter kit and Drupal distro of its kind, DUSWDS offers federal agencies a powerful tool to align with both Section 508 and USWDS guidelines.

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First: What is USWDS and why is it important?

The USWDS is a comprehensive design system created specifically for federal government websites. Maintained by the GSA’s Office of Solutions, USWDS provides a set of open-source UI components and design standards that ensure consistency, accessibility, and usability across government digital services.

Key aspects of USWDS include:

• Design tokens: Predefined units for color, spacing, typography, and more
• Components: Ready-to-use UI elements like buttons, forms, and navigation menus
• Utilities: Single-purpose classes for rapid prototyping and development
• Accessibility: Built-in compliance with WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines and Section 508 requirements

Benefits of USWDS compliance

USWDS helps federal agencies focus on their core missions while ensuring their digital presence is modern, accessible, and user-friendly. This standardization improves the citizen experience and reinforces the professionalism and reliability of government services online.

1. Consistency and Brand Trust: Using USWDS creates a unified look and feel across federal websites. This enhances public trust through familiar, government-branded experiences.
2. Accessibility and Inclusivity: Implementing USWDS helps agencies meet legal requirements for accessibility, ensuring digital services are usable by people with disabilities.
3. Improved User Experience: USWDS enhances navigation and information findability through intuitive, user-tested components and patterns.
4. Mobile Responsiveness: USWDS ensures that websites function smoothly across various devices and screen sizes, providing a seamless experience for users on mobile phones, tablets, and desktops.
5. Efficiency in Development: With pre-built, customizable components, USWDS reduces design and development time. It minimizes the need to create common user interface elements from scratch, allowing developers to focus on more unique project needs.
6. Cost-Effectiveness: By sharing resources and using tested components, USWDS lowers development and maintenance costs. It also reduces the need for extensive user testing on basic design features, saving both time and money.
7. Compliance with Federal Regulations: USWDS helps agencies meet the requirements of the 21st Century IDEA and aligns with federal web modernization initiatives, ensuring websites stay up to date with regulatory standards.
8. Continuous Improvement: USWDS benefits from ongoing research, testing, and updates due to its open-source nature. This allows agencies to stay current with the latest design practices and contribute to a growing ecosystem of government-specific solutions.

Challenges to USWDS implementation

Although it’s a wonderful design system helpful for federal agencies, there are challenges to USWDS implementation. Understanding these challenges can help agencies as it allows for better planning and resource allocation.

1. Technical Expertise Requirements: Agencies may not have developers and designers familiar with USWDS, and teams used to other frameworks might face a learning curve when switching to USWDS.
2. Legacy System Integration: Updating older websites can be challenging, especially when they’re built on outdated technologies or have custom code that doesn’t easily fit with USWDS (See which platforms have an implementation).
3. Customization Complexity: Balancing USWDS standards with the agency’s unique branding can be tricky. It’s also important to ensure that customizations don’t affect accessibility or responsiveness.
4. Resource Allocation: There may be a significant time investment upfront for setup and training, and budget limitations could impact redesign or redevelopment efforts.
5. Ongoing Maintenance: Agencies will need to keep up with USWDS updates and make sure their sites stay compatible. Balancing USWDS updates with custom agency-specific changes can also be a challenge.
6. Cross-Browser and Device Testing: Ensuring that websites work smoothly across different browsers and devices can require extra testing, especially for any custom components added by the agency.
7. Compliance Verification: Customizations must maintain accessibility standards. Agencies will also need to develop roadmaps for accessibility testing and remediation.

So, why should federal agencies should choose DUSWDS?

DUSWDS is an open-source Drupal distribution specifically designed for federal agencies. Our team saw the challenges in USWDS implementation for federal agencies, so we studied and built DUSWDS.

DUSWDS serves as a powerful bridge between the U.S. Web Design System and Drupal. It's the first and only CMS starter kit built from the ground up to align seamlessly with USWDS guidelines.

Out-of-the-box USWDS alignment

DUSWDS offers immediate alignment with USWDS guidelines, ensuring that federal websites are compliant from day one. This saves agencies significant time and resources that would otherwise be spent on manual implementation and compliance checking.

Streamlined content management through Drupal integration

By leveraging Drupal's powerful content management capabilities and aligning them with USWDS design principles, DUSWDS allows for easier content creation and management. The Layout Builder integration empowers non-technical staff to create and modify pages using drag-and-drop, USWDS-aligned components, increasing efficiency and reducing dependency on technical teams.

Accessibility compliance

DUSWDS prioritizes accessibility, with built-in features to meet Section 508 and WCAG 2.2 AA standards. This focus on accessibility ensures that federal websites are usable by all citizens, including those with disabilities, and helps agencies meet their legal obligations without additional effort.

Customization with consistency

While maintaining USWDS compliance, DUSWDS allows for agency-specific branding and design adjustments. This balance enables federal agencies to create unique, branded experiences while still adhering to government-wide design standards, fostering trust and recognition among users.

Cost-effectiveness and faster launch times

As a pre-built solution that combines USWDS guidelines with Drupal's flexibility, DUSWDS significantly reduces development time and costs. Agencies can launch compliant, user-friendly websites faster, without the need for extensive custom development or the risk of non-compliance. This efficiency is particularly valuable given the resource constraints many federal agencies face.

So, how does DUSWDS do it?

Key DUSWDS features and components

DUSWDS offers federal agencies a turnkey solution that addresses many of the challenges associated with implementing USWDS from scratch by combining the power of Drupal with the standardization of USWDS.

It provides a faster, more efficient path to creating modern, compliant, and user-friendly government websites.

• Pre-built USWDS Components: DUSWDS provides a comprehensive set of pre-built components that align with USWDS standards. These components cover common website elements, ensuring consistency, accessibility, and compliance with federal guidelines.
• Drupal Layout Builder Integration: DUSWDS seamlessly integrates with Drupal's Layout Builder, making it easy to create and customize page layouts. By using this feature, non-technical users can create and manage pages without extensive coding knowledge, making the process more efficient and accessible.
• Customization Options: DUSWDS adheres to USWDS guidelines but allows for agency-specific branding and design adjustments, ensuring federal agencies can create visually appealing websites while meeting federal web design standards.
• Security Features: To protect federal websites from common vulnerabilities and threats, DUSWDS leverages Drupal's security framework. Government websites deal with sensitive information and require high security.
• Templates: DUSWDS offers a variety of pre-designed templates that can be used as a starting point for creating different types of pages. These templates can be easily customized to meet specific agency needs while maintaining USWDS compliance.
• Mobile Responsiveness: All websites built with DUSWDS are mobile-responsive, ensuring a seamless user experience across all devices. This is critical as users increasingly access online services from a variety of devices.
• Open-Source Flexibility: DUSWDS is an open-source distribution built on the Drupal platform, providing agencies with complete control over their website code and content. This eliminates vendor lock-in and allows for long-term flexibility, scalability, and security.
• Support: We offer expert support to assist federal agencies with implementation and maintenance.

Ready to see how DUSWDS can make USWDS alignment easy for you?

The path to a modern, compliant, and user-friendly website is clear. DUSWDS offers your agency the opportunity to transform your digital presence and better fulfill your mission to serve the American people.

Don't let another day go by with an outdated, non-compliant website. Take the first step towards digital transformation with DUSWDS.

Our team of experts is ready to guide you through the platform's capabilities and show you how it can be tailored to your specific needs.

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