Contribution process: Canada.ca design

The GC design system needs to be constantly improving. The goal of this framework is to foster continuous improvement of the guidance through experimentation. It creates a space for departments to experiment and innovate, and contribute their findings for the benefit of the whole GC web community.

On this page

• Identify: submit a proposal for improvement
• Design: from prototype to stable
• Iterate: back to the drawing board

Identify: submit a proposal for improvement

While designing content for Canadians or while testing your current design, you may determine that either:

• an existing component, pattern or template needs to be improved
• a new component, pattern or template is needed to fill a gap in the design system

Consult the backlog and the experiments in progress

The first step is to find out if the improvement has already been identified. To do so, consult the backlog:

• Backlog

If your suggestion is not already identified

If the pattern or template you identified for improvement is not in the backlog, you can submit a proposal by opening an issue in GitHub .

The proposal must include at least:

• a description of the issue or gap identified
• a hypothesis on how to fix it

Suggestions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the community.

Design: from prototype to stable

Once an idea has been identified, anybody can work on tackling the issue.

Initial design and prototype

As soon as some form of prototype exists, it can be moved from the "to do" column to the the backlog to the "Design and prototyping" column in the backlog project board.

Update the corresponding issue in GitHub to share the prototype with the community.

Alpha

To go from early prototype to Alpha, the prototype needs to be accompanied with documentation that includes at the minimum:

• a hypothesis of how to solve the issue
• a mock-up or a coded prototype

The Alpha phase is used to test the hypothesis, conduct research, deal with accessibility considerations, and code a working example for testing.

Beta

To go from Alpha to Beta, you need the following:

• a fully working coded example
• any CSS/JS overrides needed to implement in the latest WET theme for Canada.ca
• assessment of accessibility
• rationale for design choices - this can be results from research or a strong rationale
• some guidance on "When to use" this component, pattern or template
• documentation in both official languages

Use the Beta phase to scale up the experiment and fix any issues you encounter.

Beta updates are available through the main design system library , and departments can use them, as long as they consider it an experiment and are willing to report back on findings.

Stable

To go from Beta to Stable, the following must be done:

• integrated to core framework (WET)
• completely valid code
• no accessibility issues left unresolved
• comments from the community have been resolved

Iterate: back to the drawing board

Once a new or updated pattern has moved to stable, it becomes the new baseline guidance.

But it doesn't mean that it's now perfect. If this improvement hasn’t solved all the issues, or if new issues arise, the component, pattern or template can be added back to the backlog and be the subject of another design round.