Introducing Lighthouse!
Last updated on July 08th, 2024
A New Vision For Delaware’s Common Look and Feel Guidelines
We are excited to share a new vision for the State of Delaware’s digital experiences! It’s called Lighthouse, and it represents a comprehensive approach to the redesign of state agency websites.
A quick reminder, the Government Information Center (GIC) was chartered in part to define unified design standards across all of Delaware’s online sites. These guidelines – named the Common Look and Feel (CLF) – have evolved over the 25 years of their existence. Each iteration of the CLF must adapt to the changing landscape of accessibility, design, and user expectations.
This time, the GIC is taking a broader view of the process by introducing Lighthouse!
We bet you’ve got questions!
What is Lighthouse?
A: Lighthouse is a comprehensive design system that will be the newest version of the CLF guidelines for Delaware state government websites.
What is a design system?
A: In this case, a design system is a set of reusable components to manage design elements across numerous web domains and platforms. A design system allows state agencies to present information about the services they offer to their constituents in a uniform approach. A design system also helps web teams, third parties, and staff who work on digital products to more easily build layouts that are well-designed to meet accessibility standards.
What does this mean for my agency?
A: It means your team will soon have access to a new suite of design and content resources to help improve your ability to serve your constituents! These include new, easier to use website and page layouts, reusable design components (think: accordions, buttons, bulleted lists, form field inputs, and more) along with research-driven design and content guidance.
When can I see the design?
A: We’re glad you are as excited as we are! We will be working in the open: sharing our designs in Figma, sharing our HTML through Storybook, and posting here in our blog about progress we’re making. Expect to see these links to the Figma design file in the next few weeks, with code through Storybook to follow. We’ll post these links along with more information in the coming weeks
To Summarize
The Lighthouse Design System is the modern evolution of our Common Look and Feel guidelines. Lighthouse is also the name of the entire strategy behind those standards. This design system will offer a new suite of WCAG 2.1 AA (at the minimum) compliant web components. Using this design system will help your agency meet the accessibility standards that are now required by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Lighthouse Design System Goals:
- To provide a consistent user experience for Delaware residents and visitors
- To reinforce official credibility and trust in state government digital services
- To provide a more efficient way to build and maintain websites
- To help state agencies fix and stay on top accessibility requirements
- To make it easier to create new pages and layouts for an easier page editing experience
The Lighthouse Design System is a comprehensive approach to accessibility, user experience and trust.
We look forward to sharing more details in the coming weeks!
Read more articles about: CLF, Lighthouse.
Browse by Topic:
Browse by Date:
Feedback:
Have an idea for a blog post or feedback on an existing post? We would love to hear from you!
