patlaj
commented
5 years ago Hi @MaddyDaigle,
Sorry for the confusion… yes those templates are caught in a transition of what’s mandatory. The mandatory elements are the header and footer, typography, some colours, and the layout of some particular pages. That’s described in detail here:
What gets into the Canada.ca WET templates and overall design system have gone through a thorough design, review, coding and testing process. They can certainly be improved, but they’re the best we have right now to solve certain problems or meet certain needs. For most people, using those patterns and the associated WET code will be the best way to help your users do what they came for.
However, not everything people need to do has a corresponding pattern, and there will be better ways to do certain things. When people come across things like that, we’d like them to be able to help improve the design system for everyone. For now, the best way to do that is to email dto.btn@tbs-sct.gc.ca so we can work together on them. (The main concern is that there's evidence to support the changes.)
There are also certain things that really should be consistent site-wide. If you’ve used a filtered table for example, it’s not ideal for it to behave significantly differently on some other page. Alerts probably shouldn't look different from page to page. Strictly speaking though, neither of those are mandatory at the moment. Buttons... as long as they're the right font and size and meet AAA contrast (and work for your users) they're probably fine.
This is a long answer I know, but I think what it comes down to is:
- As of now, only what’s on the Mandatory elements page is truly mandatory
- Things are much easier and safer if you use the WET styles
- We want to improve the design system and get better stuff into WET for others to use
- If you want to do something different, make sure it’s better
- If you have a better way to do things, please let us know so we can take that into account in considering updates to patterns
I hope that answers your question!
Patrick
duboisp
GormFrank
Hello,
This isn’t an issue, but is a question on the Content IA specifications of Canada.ca.
My team works on doing UX research/design for several different online applications. We’ve had some confusion on which elements in the Canada.ca pattern library are considered mandatory and how this fits with WET 4. As an example, in the pattern library list, the pattern for “Buttons” is not specified as a “mandatory pattern”. However, when opening the description for buttons, the following is specified: “Use only WET button styles”.
I am wondering if using WET 4 styles is mandatory. WET is not mentioned in the “Mandatory elements“ in the content IA specifications.
If we can make modifications to WET styles, how much freedom do designers have to change the look of elements like buttons? Assuming they have been user tested and meet WCAG 2.0, of course.
Thanks so much!