U.S. Web Design Standards + DigitalGov

We’re excited to announce that the U.S. Web Design Standards has moved over to the Office of Products and Platforms (OPP) and joined the new DigitalGov team, effective October 1, 2017.

Why DigitalGov

Over the last 10 years, Digital.gov has become an authoritative destination to learn about the methods, practices, policies, and tools needed to create effective digital services in government. It’s where government goes to learn from experience: building, working, communicating, and adapting to the evolving needs of our digital nation.

Our mission has been to help people deliver smart, effective digital services in the government. Going forward, we aim to set an example for how government learns, builds, delivers, and measures digital services in the 21st century.

The Standards provides an increasingly important service to government modernization. By moving the Standards to OPP under DigitalGov, we are providing the Standards with the financial, organizational, and communications support needed to focus on delivering a high-quality design system and supporting framework for government sites.

This is an opportunity to become a part of an appropriated program and set the Standards on a solid, sustainable path going forward. And it will be DigitalGov’s job to support their continued growth while inspiring and building trust with teams across government.

This move is a commitment to supporting the future of the Standards, and a testament to the years of hard work by many people in OPP who have built the reach and credibility behind Digital.gov.

The team

And we’re happy to formally announce that Maya Benari, John Donmoyer, Andrea Sigritz, and Dan Williams will be your U.S. Web Design Standards Core team.

These four are strong designers, engineers and writers who are architects and builders of systems and design patterns and have the right set of practical skills, values and strong opinions to move the Standards forward.

Dan Williams is a thoughtful designer and writer who recently joined the DigitalGov team from 18F Design to help reimagine what our service could become. Dan will be the acting product owner for the project in addition to working on reimagining DigitalGov.

John Donmoyer also comes to us from 18F and has been a member of the Standards team for the last six months and has seen first-hand the power they have to transform product teams.

Maya Benari was part of the 18F team that helped get the Standards off the ground in 2015 and has since been an strong advocate for their use in government.

Andrea Sigritz has been an editor on the DigitalGov team for a number of years and has a deep understanding of the people in the government technology space and what tools, resources and guidance they need to be effective.

All four of them are talented design systems thinkers with excellent ideas about what the Standards are and can be. The Standards and OPP are fortunate to have them on board.

What’s next

In the first four months — we hope to evaluate the present state of the Standards, set the vision and roadmap for how they can make a continued long-term impact across government, and establish a solid foundation for the Standards as an active open-source project.

Say hello to the Standards team:

• Join their Public Slack channel
• Send them an email
• Contribute to the project
• Build something with the standards

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