TC Design
Design systems and standards
- Allison Batoff
External applications
Current
External-facing applications (the Canadian public, other government departments, commercial/industry clients) employ the Centrally Deployed Templates Solution (CDTS) to implement Canada.ca branding and theming. The CDTS includes the Web Experience Toolkit and implements the Canada.ca design. Please see:
Centrally Deployed Templates Solution (CDTS)
Future
One recognized limitation of the CDTS is that it was designed for content pages and not for complex web applications. In the summer of 2023, the Canadian Digital Service (CDS) and the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) merged and are in the process of creating a cohesive design system for the Government of Canada.
This project is called the GC Design System and is in an alpha phase. Team Orcas is currently doing a pilot project with this design system. Once their pilot has been launched, their findings and lessons learned will be captured and linked here.
Internal applications
The Government of Canada does not have a design system for internal applications. However, in Marine and Civil Aviation at Transport Canada we introduced the Telerik component library in September 2022. The goals of purchasing this component library were to achieve closer alignment between design and implementation, help our teams meet our standards for responsive design and accessibility, and create more consistency across Marine and Civil Aviation products. Â
Since then, we have also created a theme with a common look and feel and a pattern library that includes guidelines and examples on how to use various Telerik components. Please see:
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TC Design