# Design
LocalGov Drupal is a Drupal distribution (opens new window) that has been developed collaboratively by councils and their suppliers. It aims to deliver default functionality that most local councils need for web publishing.
It will need some design resource to apply a council's brand to the default installation, and some councils take the design further to make significant changes to the features, information architecture and visual design of the site.
Below is some background in to the design of LocalGov Drupal so far.
# Information architecture
LocalGov Drupal ships with a number of predefined content templates known as content types. These have been architected following guidance from the GOV.UK Design System (opens new window) .
Local government is responsible for a range of services for people and businesses. Among them are well known functions such as social care, schools, housing and planning and waste collection.
LocalGov Drupal groups its content around this concept of services, which may or may not map to the departments within the council itself. Services can contain various types of content - pages, guides, step by steps, directories (of places or things) and news.
Subsites exist outside services and allow for more campaign-like sites, with different designs, more complex content components and multi-column layouts to be created on the fly by content designers.
Events also exist outside services.
# Wireframes
Where wireframes exist, they can be found on the documentation page.
# Visual design
The visual design of the site can be changed subtley or substantially, depending on the needs and resources of a council.
We have created a base theme (localgov_base) which allows for a quick re-skin of LocalGov Drupal with a council's own colours, fonts and logo.
However it is perfectly possible to create a new design (and theme) from scratch allowing for total control over the front-end of the website. (See also decoupled websites)
# Designs in the wild
- Bedford Borough Council (opens new window)
- Barking & Dagenham Council (opens new window)
- Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (opens new window)
- Bracknell Forest Council (opens new window)
- Brighton and Hove City Council (opens new window)
- Canterbury City Council (opens new window)
- Croydon Council (opens new window)
- Cumberland Council (opens new window)
- Hammersmith & Fulham Council (opens new window)
- Hart District Council (opens new window)
- Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council (opens new window)
- Lambeth Council (opens new window)
- Milton Keynes Council (opens new window)
- North Kesteven District Council (opens new window)
- North Yorkshire Council (opens new window)
- Redcar and Cleveland Council (opens new window)
- Rutland County Council (opens new window)
- Sheffield City Council (opens new window)
- South Staffordshire Council (opens new window)
- Tipperary County Council (opens new window)
- Waltham Forest Council (opens new window)
- West Lindsey District Council (opens new window)
- Westminster City Council (opens new window)
- Westmorland and Furness Council (opens new window)
- Wirral Council (opens new window)
# Feature design
When a new feature is proposed (or backported) we encourage a small working group to carry out a feature design process to ensure that it meets the needs of many. This should be documented in a place people can refer back to it in the future.
We'd love to have more design resources involved in these working groups so please get in touch if you'd like to be involved.
# Get involved
LocalGov Drupal needs all sorts of designers to help push forward features and issues. We now need more evidence based design based on best practices and existing user research, as well as new ideas that we can test with further user research. If you are a designers in a council using or considering Localgov Drupal please get in touch!
We also encourage contributions from suppliers supporting councils using LocalGov Drupal.
# Slack channels
Join the LocalGov Drupal slack channel to ask questions or find other designers to work with. Email hello@localgovdrupal.org to join.
# Frontend Working Group
The Frontend Group meets regularly to consider the frontend issues. This group is selected from active LocalGov Drupal contributors from across Councils and active suppliers.
# Drupal terminology
It's hard to get away from Drupal terminology, but please let us know if anything in this documenation could be clearer.