Aurora

Aurora design system logo
Aurora design system
Developer	Digital Collaboration Division
Initial release	September 24, 2018
Latest version	V1, September 24, 2018
Website	design.gccollab.ca
UI kit	Download UI kit
GitHub repository	Github Repository

Aurora design system is a central design guide developed in 2018 by the Digital Collaboration Division within the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat of the Government of Canada. It was built through a collaborative effort between various designers, developers and writers across the Government of Canada.

Lead by the Digital Collaboration Division at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Aurora design system was created in collaboration with the Canadian Digital Service: Talent Cloud, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and other individuals within Government of Canada. Aurora design system was created to standardize the visual language and user experience of the Open Accessible Digital Workplace's online applications and tools.

Overview

Aurora design system is a catalogue of user interface elements, writing style, guiding principles, coding standards, visual design, etc. for use in the Open Accessible Digital Workplace's applications. It was built in the open with contributions from developers, designers, writers and data scientists. Aurora design system is an ongoing project. Future iterations will be made to increase the number of components available, expand its code and documentation, and improve its user experience attributes.

Mission Statement

Make a design system for the Government of Canada’s digital collaboration tools that can also be reused and applied to other public or internal digital services and products. This system will help to ensure a seamless experience for users across platforms, will be easy to use, and quick for developers and designers to implement. The design system will provide a basic framework with guiding principles and components, with the ability to be adapted to other brands and needs.

Principles

Aurora design system adheres to the following principles:

• Simple and flexible: Provides all necessary elements without being restrictive. Aurora Design System is a lightweight system that can be adapted to suit a specific product.

• Fun to use: Makes the job of developers and designers easier rather than add extra burdens or obligations to follow. Aurora Design System has an aesthetically pleasing design that is easy to navigate and adapt.

• Re-usable: Suits a variety of needs. All components and principles are generic enough to be applied to a wide range of digital products. Code and design elements can easily be extracted to create new products, and communications guidelines are easy to understand and follow.

• Diverse: Covers a variety of needs and types of products. Aurora Design System follows necessary Government of Canada obligations such as official languages and accessibility

• Technology agnostic: Applicable to any technologic framework that a team decides to use for their project.

• Open: To anyone who wishes to use it. All of Aurora Design System’s code is open source, and all other guidelines and elements are free to copy.

Project Team

Role	Name(s)	Team	Contact Information
Project Leads	Genevieve Lemieux Sierra Duffey	Digital Collaboration Division	genevieve.lemieux@tbs-sct.gc.ca sierra.duffey@tbs-sct.gc.ca
UX Researchers	Rebecca Jeong Alex Mesley Donna Monbourquette	Digital Collaboration Division	rebecca.jeong@tbs-sct.gc.ca alex.mesley@tbs-st.gc.ca donna.monbourquette@tbs-sct.gc.ca
Front-End (UI) Developers	Ethan Wallace Nick Pietrantonio Simon Roy Omar Nasr Daniel Spence	Digital Collaboration Division Health Canada Canada Revenue Agency	ethan.wallace@tbs-sct.gc.ca nicholas.pietrantonio@tbs-sct.gc.ca stephanie.lefebvre@tbs-sct.gc.ca simon.roy@tbs-sct.gc.ca omar.nasr@canada.ca daniel.spence@cra-arc.gc.ca
Graphic Designers	Michael Martel Sabrina Rowland Côté Chuma Asuzu	Digital Collaboration Division IRCC	michael.martel@tbs-sct.gc.ca sabrina.rowland-cote@tbs-sct.gc.ca michael.asuzu@cic.gc.ca
Technical Writers	Marianne Aubrey Nneka Nnagbo	Digital Collaboration Division Canada Revenue Agency	marianne.aubrey@tbs-sct.gc.ca nneka.nnagbo@cra-arc.gc.ca
Partnership Liaison	Heather Laird	Digital Collaboration Division	heather.laird@tbs-sct.gc.ca
Consultants	Sean Boots Thomas Gohard Paul Jackson Gerardo Escandon	Canadian Digital Service OneGC (TBS) OneGC (TBS) Talent Cloud	sean.boots@tbs-sct.gc.ca thomas.gohard@tbs-sct.gc.ca paul.jackson@tbs-sct.gc.ca

Versions

Version one

Released on September 24th, 2018, the first version of Aurora design system included components, as well as best practices for written content and data visualization.

Components in version one

Version one included HTML code, design elements and documentation for the following components:

Example of Tags component with HTML code

Component Type	Component
Visuals	Colour Icons Typography
Standard	Avatars and thumbnails Badges Buttons Cards Divider/rule Grids and spacing System messaging Tags, chips and pills Tooltips
Navigation	Breadcrumbs Back to top Links Pagination and scrolling Search
Forms	Form design and labels Button inputs Errors and validation File upload Progress indicators Text inputs

Content and data

Aurora contained content guidelines and data visualization styles, and best practices for the following topics:

Example of a bar graph in Aurora design system

Category	Topic
Content guidelines	Reading level and plain language Spelling Addressing users Referring to product owners and the Government of Canada Useful tools
Content formatting	Aurora follows the Canadian Press Style Guide: Capitalization Dates, numbers and addresses Time Units of measurement Ampersands Commas, ellipses, colons Slashes and hyphens Bold and italics Quotation marks
Glossary	Containing definitions of words commonly used by the Digital Collaboration Division.
System vocabulary	Containing definitions of words appearing in Aurora and its tools.
Data overview	Best practices of data visualization Multiple formats Labels Colours and textures Stylized numbers
Choosing visualizations	Tables Bar and column graphs Line graphs Scatterplots
Legends and tooltips	Side aligned legend Bottom aligned legend

Future Updates

As Aurora is an iterative product, updates and fixes will be applied on a regular schedule. Currently three iterations have been planned.

Version 1.2

Version 1.2 will fix known bugs, as well as add components and content that are in progress from Version 1.

Fixes

• Improvements to mobile navigation
• Review of all of the alternative text on the site
• Apply usability and accessibility fixes
• Add proper translations in code blocks
• Fix inconsistency in components

Updates

• Download page with distribution file and UI kit
• Contact page
• Help articles formatting
• Comments
• Menus
• Do and don't images

Version 1.3

Version 1.3 will update the navigation elements in Aurora, as well as address fixes from user feedback from Version 1.2.

Updates

• Drawers and accordions
• Header and Footer
• Sidebar
• Tabs
• Alternative Text article
• Research page for design system-related studies

Research

Studies conducted by the Digital Collaboration Divison

• Mood Board Survey
• Card-Sorting: Information Architecture
• Report: Typography and Data Visualizations
• Final Architecture for Design System

Design systems used as inspiration and reference

• Semantic.ui
• Google Material Design!
• United States Gov
• Carbon Design System

• Shopify Polaris

• Designers Italia

• Pattern Lab
• Lightning Design System

• Oracle Alta UI

• Microsoft Fluent Design
• Clarity Design System

• List of awesome design systems