Resources & design system
This list is an evolving collection of official & community design resources, guides and user research. See something missing? Let us know in the chat!
Accessibility
Decidim is working it's way towards WCAG 2.2 level AA compliance. However, for strategic reasons, Decidim will not invest in an official accessibility audit until it reaches LTS (Long Term Support) on the roadmap. For now, accessibility improvements being implemented are listed here.
How can I help?
As a partner or platform administrator, you can commission an accessibility audit on Decidim's latest stable version and share its results with our group (or directly with the product team). This will help the product team gain better accessibility levels.
Decidim design system (0.28+)
Based on Populate's redesign for version 0.28, this Figma file will be maintained by the community and aims to serve as an ever-evolving library for the upcoming versions. Figma file
Why do we need it?
The design system is a central library of pre-built UI components (buttons, forms, etc.) and design guidelines. This saves development time and ensures designers aren't recreating the wheel.
A design system allows for faster and easier expansion of the platform by providing a foundation for future features. Furthermore, it is an essential element in building a designer-developer collaboration to work together as a team.
Design system constraints
Reflect all components as they exist on Decidim 0.28 running on try.decidim.org.
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Do not change existing elements.
What has been done?
All pages were analyzed to determine commonly used elements and patterns.
Common colors and text styles were defined.
Commonly used elements were analyzed to define common patterns and master components were created for them.
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Multipurpose master components were created for most of the elements to initiate a transition to add consistency across similar elements in Decidim.
Recommendations
Reuse components as much as you can unless you can’t keep a good user experience with the existing elements. Avoid adding new components, they will make harmonization harder.
Create a clear spacing system.
Use left and right margins across all the pages more consistently.
Standardize vertical margins to create some vertical rhythm.
Decrease minor differences in cards across all pages to make them look more consistent.
Guides
Decidim Design Guide
This guide is a resource for designers and developers who need to customize, develop new modules, and integrate new features. Official design guide (nightly)
Developer Accessibility guidelines
The purpose of this guide is to provide some simple tips on how to follow the accessibility guidelines when developing the Decidim user interface. Decidim official website
Design resources
Decidim UI iconset (0.28+)
Remixicons is the standard for the icons you can find in the redesigned Decidim interface available since 0.28. You can also find them all in the Figma file above. Decidim UI iconset
Gov.uk's Design system
Gov.uk's design system is a reference to organize the Figma file the product team is using, based on the above Decidim design system (0.28+). Figma file
User research
Collective User Experience and Autonomy: Friction and Appropriation through the MetaDecidim example (2025)
By Marta Pérez-Verdugo. Abstract:
User Experience (UX) design is usually guided by principles of seamlessness and ease of use, aiming to reduce friction in the use of digital platforms. These principles, however, can foster risks for users’ personal autonomies by overdetermining their possible courses of action. How to navigate this problem is difficult; while different voices have advocated for the ethical benefits of friction, articulating it at the individual level often results in frustration for users. In this paper, we argue that friction becomes particularly empowering when it is embedded in digital infrastructures that put the focus on collective technopolitical autonomy. To exemplify this, we explore MetaDecidim, the participatory platform governing the Decidim project. The Decidim project aims to offer a platform for deliberative democracy that can be appropriated in different contexts and that is, more importantly, governed by the very community through an instance of the platform (the MetaDecidim instance). MetaDecidim usually prioritizes collective experience over individual usability, which leads to the inherent frictions of deliberative participation. But unlike in commercial digital infrastructures, where friction usually alienates users, MetaDecidim channels friction into a structured process of appropriation, putting the platform itself as an object of deliberation and allowing users to intervene on it through the collective action that it enables. Full paper here
Metadecidim heuristics review (2023)
Resulting from the work of Katarina & Carol, this work document contains recommendations to improve metadecidim's UX. Read the report
Usability tests (2023)
Resulting from the work of Katarina & Carol, these figma files contain recommendations to improve Decidim's usability. (full results from the tests coming soon) Figma file with comments, Figma prototype, Main flows (.png format)
Accessibility for Dyslexia audit (2022)
Pierre Mesure collaborated with students to evaluate text accessibility in the context of dyslexia and propose solutions to improve usability for text-based content. View the Figma file here
Perceived credibility of Geneva's Decidim platform (2020)
Using a quantitative (attrakdiff method) and qualitative approach (user interviews), Octree researched a stratified sample of the population to determine it's perceived usability, credibility and attractivity among non users. Read the full report here
Tools & utilities
Image compression
ImageOptim is a free utility which allows to optimize image compression for web: available here.
Fellow communities
Open Source Design
A community of designers and developers pushing for more open design processes and improving the user experience and interface design of open-source software: https://opensourcedesign.net/
Designers in OSS
A research exploring common challenges, goals and practices of designers contributing to OSS: https://github.com/sprblm/Diary-Studies-Designers-in-OSS/blob/main/findings-report.md