Project/programme description: 

ICTU works to improve digital government, for and together with other government organisations. 

With the NL Design System approach, we gather guidelines, components and examples to build robust websites and web applications for government. This is done within a multidisciplinary group of professionals who together form the NL Design System Core Team and the Digital Accessibility Expert Team. 

 The components and guidelines of NL Design System are open-source available on GitHub and Figma, so that anyone can use them for an understandable, user-friendly and accessible online service. 

 With the Digital Accessibility Expert Team, concrete solutions are being built to make it easier for government organisations to provide accessible websites and web applications.  

Description end of project/programme: 

The project is finished when the client has accepted the delivered results and granted a substantive discharge. Is the case when the client and has a landing place for all NL Design System activities and tools, have been transferred to the relevant management party and after-care has been carried out. 

What role does the professional have within the project/programme: 

The assignment consists of advising on accessibility through documentation and test specifications for components, patterns and templates. Thus, you will help improve accessibility in the Netherlands with the tools created by the expert team and contribute to the further development of NL Design System as a government-wide open source white-label design system.

What task will the professional perform and what activities are associated with it? 

The activities involved in achieving the mission are: 

• Translating visual design into accessible templates with NL Design System components
• Translating accessibility documentation into accessible patterns
• Application of NL Design System guidelines and documentation
• Improving patterns and templates following accessibility research
• Provide feedback on NL Design System components, guidelines and documentation. 
• Deliver documentation in Markdown so others can easily use the templates
• Implement test specifications for accessibility in Unit tests with Jest and React Testing Library
• Keeping templates fresh & secure by updating code dependencies monthly.
• In consultation with professionals from the Digital Accessibility Expert Team, carry out activities to validate and extend the templates, patterns and documentation through:

-Once every 2 weeks: Sprint planning. 

-If necessary: Refinements in a private Slack Huddle of the Digital Accessibility Expert Team.

-If necessary: review pull requests from other experts in the project to provide early feedback from their own expertise.

-Share progress in the private Slack channel an the Digital Accessibility Expert Team and the NL Design System Heartbeat.

-Public Huddles to determine a new approach for the templates, patterns or components of NL Design System.

What partial results will the professional need to achieve during the assignment: 

• The templates available in the NL Design System community have been expanded by accessible examples
• The patterns available in the NL Design System community have been expanded with examples for component combinations that have often been made inaccessible
• Reuse of templates made easier
• The templates have been added to the Theme Wizard of the Digital Accessibility Expert Team.
• Issues created in Github for needed extension of templates 
• Issues created in Github for needed pattern expansion
• Suggestions for improvements to NL Design System components added to the GitHub Discussions of the NL Design System community
• Extension of the templates based on the captured stories in GitHub in accordance with the acceptance criteria established with the Product Owner, or client, have been implemented. 
• Expansion of the patterns based on the captured stories in GitHub in accordance with the acceptance criteria set with the Product Owner, or client, have been implemented.  
• Improvements to the NL Design System Community and Candidate components implemented based on the recorded stories in GitHub in accordance with the acceptance criteria established with the Product Owner, or client.  
• All templates are built according to the NL Design System architecture. 

What end results will the professional be required to deliver at the end of the assignment.  

• Templates built with components from the NL Design System community, working with NL Design System themes from multiple organisations.
• Documentation in Markdown, including explanations of which components and patterns to apply, and how developers should use them in an accessible way in their own projects.
• Contribute to open source projects in the NL Design System community, to improve the reusability of components in different platforms and house styles.