A scalable design foundation built for consistency, clarity, and federal compliance.

Overview

The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) provides a standardized design language for federal websites and applications. To support faster, more consistent implementation across CMS projects, a Figma-based USWDS Design Kit was created and maintained as a shared resource for designers, developers, and product teams.

This kit served as the foundation for designing compliant, accessible, and visually cohesive user interfaces across multiple government applications.

Problem / Solution

While USWDS offers a robust component library in code, design teams lacked an organized, up-to-date source of truth in Figma. This created inconsistencies across projects, slowed down prototyping, and introduced friction between design and development teams.

A centralized design kit was created in Figma to:

• Translate official USWDS components into accurate, scalable design assets

• Establish clear naming conventions and documentation for shared use

• Align design assets with real-world implementation patterns used in CMS projects

• Enable faster mockups and collaborative workflows across UX teams

• Reduce design debt by improving visual and functional consistency across systems

UX Considerations

System parity: Ensured component structure in Figma matched USWDS codebase and CMS-specific styles, improving design-to-dev handoff.

Accessibility alignment: Included proper contrast, spacing, and focus indicators in components to support WCAG compliance.

Reusable structure: Organized the kit into nested components and variants to support efficient, scalable UI building.

Team collaboration: Structured the file for multi-project access with intuitive naming and documentation for easier onboarding.

Visual fidelity: Maintained pixel accuracy to reduce confusion and eliminate the need for redundant styling at the implementation stage.