Websites ‘in jeopardy’ amid U.S. Web Design System takeover, coalition tells GSA
A coalition of dozens of software developers and former government employees is calling on the General Services Administration to reverse recent actions related to the U.S. Web Design System, warning that its current direction could have widespread impact on website accessibility.
In an open letter shared exclusively with FedScoop, the coalition warned GSA leaders that recent moves to put the lead official at USWDS on administrative leave, implement new leadership, remove contributors to a public GitHub repository for the system, delete public comments and add in new AI programs have put the system and thousands of websites it powers “in jeopardy.”
Those actions leave agencies with a difficult question: “Can we continue to treat USWDS as trusted government infrastructure?” the signatories wrote. “Given the removal of experienced community maintainers and user comments from public discussions, we believe the answer, currently, is no.”
To remedy the situation, the signers asked GSA to take seven actions, including restoring access to USWDS GitHub for community maintainers, bringing back former leaders and staff, communicating openly, and maintaining “rigorous manual accessibility testing and documented quality assurance.”
The takeover of USWDS described in the letter unfolded rapidly over the past several weeks. It more or less began with a move to place USWDS lead Anne Petersen, the final remaining member of the legacy team, on administrative leave at the beginning this month, and a flurry of activity in the GitHub page.
Those tensions boiled over last week when a newcomer to the project, Ryan Parker, stated plans to “automate as much accessibility testing as possible across current and future USWDS versions.”
While automation is part of accessibility testing, experts said that it is not yet able to be a stand-in for human review, and worried that the apparent direction that the new team appears to be taking would reverse hard-won progress for web accessibility.
The USWDS is a roughly decade-old system that was established to provide government website developers with reliable building blocks that have been thoroughly reviewed and tested against accessibility requirements. Given its open-source nature, the USWDS’s impact is widespread. It’s used by federal, state and local governments and can be a reference for other organizations as well.
That widespread impact contributes to the concerns.
“One accessibility defect, performance issue, or security vulnerability in USWDS can put thousands of systems at risk,” the letter stated. “Conversely, every problem identified, tested, and fixed centrally saves hundreds of government teams from having to independently discover and solve the same problem.”
The letter also emphasizes that the relationship that organizations have with the system is based on trust. That trust “has always meant more than trusting that the code runs,” per the letter. Rather, it’s trust that accessibility testing was completed, followed quality-assurance practices, and the updates were reviewed by individuals who understand the consequences.
The correspondence concludes with the sentiment that the signers are “still here” and “ready to help.”
“USWDS has never been the work of one person, one administration, one contractor, or even one agency,” the letter said. “It is the accumulated work of a dedicated and passionate community that has spent more than a decade learning how to build better digital services for the public, together.”
FedScoop reached out to GSA for comment upon publication of this story.
