Should governments build and maintain technical solutions, or should they contribute to and support community-led projects?

This potentially controversial statement highlights a choice the Australian government recently faced in their pursuit of improving the digital experience of its citizens.

Learn how they solved this by adopting an open-source design-system created and managed by the open-source community.

The CivicTheme is an open-source, atomic design-based, true design system developed by the community to help government agencies quickly and efficiently build websites.

The CivicTheme design system consists of three layers:
1. Design Layer: A Figma-based visual design system enabling rapid prototyping and high-fidelity designs.
2. Technical Layer: A fully functional set of parity-mapped companion components available in Storybook, designed for seamless collaboration with designers.
3. Theme Layer: Over 60 fully functional components initially developed as a Drupal theme.

This approach might sound familiar; however, it has some fundamental differences in delivering public sector digital projects.

CivicTheme distinguishes itself with a framework of three key governance and compliance pillars:

1. User Research Evidence-Based Framework: Used to assess new component contributions for project giveback.
2. Accessibility Framework: Ensuring compliance with WCAG standards.
3. Security Framework: Ensuring relevant security policies, conventions, and best practices are integrated into the design system.
4.Community led steering committee: with members of the open source community and key government organisations to grow and guide the project.

But first, let's really address the virtual elephant in the room: Is CivicTheme really that different from the USWDS? Well, yes and no.

We’ll discuss the differences between a community-led design system versus a government-led solution, their pros and cons, and how an alternative solution can be highly successful in delivering government websites.