4 ms·

I would find real peace of mind in a design system maintained by a government that guarantees compliance with that government's accessibility requirements.

gunsch 5y ago
This one's the real answer (or at least a substantial part of it). On VA.gov, the USWDS components (and their composition into a modular forms system) was a large part of making sure that applications met the accessibility needs of the general public. Source: I was the VA.gov engineering lead for awhile
sakopov 5y ago
Any kind of technical compliance by government is guaranteed to be old and obsolete in the near future. The reality of the situation is that this "design system" is a waste of time and it will never iterate as fast as other systems maintained by industry experts in web compliance and accessibility. This is just a case where folks are happy that our government isn't doing shit in Dreamweaver anymore and has moved on to something that resembles progress. However, government should be focusing on streamlining government operations, not developing accessibility standards and reinventing the same wheel. Leave that to professionals and use what's already available.
- p_l 5y ago
  Considering that accessibility standards worldwide are mostly pushed forward by governments, even when there's action outside of it it's usually due to "government put laws stating specific requirements". While accessibility is usually afterthought unless directly whacked by a fine, and you can't just use "what's already available". As for streamlining - this is streamlining, making it so that multiple entities within government that all need to build websites can use a common shared resource instead of duplicating the work (even "going shopping" for external solution takes valuable time).
- webmaven 5y ago
  > Any kind of technical compliance by government is guaranteed to be old and obsolete in the near future. The reality of the situation is that this "design system" is a waste of time and it will never iterate as fast as other systems maintained by industry experts in web compliance and accessibility. You really ought to check out how fast this design system has iterated to date: https://github.com/uswds/uswds/releases https://github.com/uswds/uswds/releases > However, government should be focusing on streamlining government operations, not developing accessibility standards and reinventing the same wheel. Leave that to professionals and use what's already available. First, I'm not sure why you think accessibility doesn't fall under streamlining government operations. Second, the folks at USDS are top professionals from industry and are limited to a four year "tour of duty", so they aren't lifelong government employees.

gunsch 5y ago

This one's the real answer (or at least a substantial part of it). On VA.gov, the USWDS components (and their composition into a modular forms system) was a large part of making sure that applications met the accessibility needs of the general public. Source: I was the VA.gov engineering lead for awhile

sakopov 5y ago

Any kind of technical compliance by government is guaranteed to be old and obsolete in the near future. The reality of the situation is that this "design system" is a waste of time and it will never iterate as fast as other systems maintained by industry experts in web compliance and accessibility. This is just a case where folks are happy that our government isn't doing shit in Dreamweaver anymore and has moved on to something that resembles progress. However, government should be focusing on streamlining government operations, not developing accessibility standards and reinventing the same wheel. Leave that to professionals and use what's already available.

p_l 5y ago
Considering that accessibility standards worldwide are mostly pushed forward by governments, even when there's action outside of it it's usually due to "government put laws stating specific requirements". While accessibility is usually afterthought unless directly whacked by a fine, and you can't just use "what's already available". As for streamlining - this is streamlining, making it so that multiple entities within government that all need to build websites can use a common shared resource instead of duplicating the work (even "going shopping" for external solution takes valuable time).
webmaven 5y ago
> Any kind of technical compliance by government is guaranteed to be old and obsolete in the near future. The reality of the situation is that this "design system" is a waste of time and it will never iterate as fast as other systems maintained by industry experts in web compliance and accessibility. You really ought to check out how fast this design system has iterated to date: https://github.com/uswds/uswds/releases https://github.com/uswds/uswds/releases > However, government should be focusing on streamlining government operations, not developing accessibility standards and reinventing the same wheel. Leave that to professionals and use what's already available. First, I'm not sure why you think accessibility doesn't fall under streamlining government operations. Second, the folks at USDS are top professionals from industry and are limited to a four year "tour of duty", so they aren't lifelong government employees.