Design system community: Canada.ca design

Community principles

Follow these principles when you contribute to the Canada.ca design system. These principles are heavily inspired by the GOV.UK design system community principles.

1. Start with what already exists

Start with the current library. There already may be something you can use, or something you can improve upon.

The existing components, patterns and layouts are evidence-based, and they are a great starting point. Know what's there to identify gaps and possible improvements.

Look at the community backlog to see if your idea has already been identified.

Reach out to community to find what others already have done.

2. Share your learnings with the community

As you do research, share your findings with the whole community.

Try to contribute back design components and patterns that are scalable, reusable and can evolve over time.

If you find something that doesn't work (a gap, an error, a contradiction, a flawed design), speak up. Let the community know.

When working on a contribution, gather evidence, and share it.

3. Work in the open, and be open

To avoid duplication of effort, when you are working on something, let the community know.

Share your work as early as possible, so others can contribute too.

Be honest and humble: share what works, what doesn't, and the research you did to understand that.

Be kind and respectful, and be open to feedback and changes to your work.

Be inclusive from the get go, and value what others can bring.

How to contribute

Anyone can contribute to the Canada.ca design system.

A contribution could be:

• suggesting an improvement to a component
• working on a new pattern or page layout
• clarifying guidance
• correcting an error
• anything that makes the design system better for the community

Contribution process

Backlog

The community backlog is on GitHub. It documents all the ideas to work on and their status.