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About SWE

The Single Website Experience (SWE) helps designers, developers and publishers quickly and easily provide a consistent experience across the qld.gov.au website franchise model. It is made up of a set of website interface components and templates, with accompanying implementation guidance.

The SWE is first and foremost a standalone website framework. We also support its implementation and availability on Squiz Matrix, the content management system (CMS) for the qld.gov.au website.

The Digital services policy directs Queensland Government on the design, delivery, and management of public-facing digital services. The policy states that digital information, products, and services must meet all 13 criteria in the Queensland Government’s Digital service standard.

Meeting criteria 6 of the Digital service standard involves building with responsive design methods using the approved design standards. The approved design standards are the Consistent User Experience (CUE) standard and the Queensland Government Design System (beta).

The SWE is built upon the CUE standard and is the appropriate design pattern to apply across the qld.gov.au website franchise model and its information and services. It was released in conjunction with the franchise model in 2010. The requirements included in the SWE were developed in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and tested by customer focus groups.

All Australian websites have a legal requirement to be usable and accessible to people with disabilities (see the Disability Discrimination Act 1992).

We aim to ensure the SWE is accessible and inclusive of all users regardless of their ability and environment. The SWE currently meets the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA and we are working towards WCAG 2.1 compliance, in line with timeframes specified by the Digital services policy transition plan.

What's new

23 Jan 2024: We released v4.4.0

This release included a new tag component and numerous improvements to the topic index and franchise landing page templates. Updates were also made to the table, social media, quick exit, radio, checkbox, and accordion components.

Contribute

The SWE is for, and built by, all of us—and we need your help to continue improving it. Anyone can suggest an improvement, report a bug or fix an error. Take a look at the 'contribute to SWE' page to find out how.

Join the User interface community of practice (UI CoP), where Queensland Government employees share and discuss our experiences, ideas and resources on user interface design and development, including the SWE.

Support

The SWE is maintained by Queensland Online within Smart Service Queensland, Department of Transport and Main Roads.

Contact the team by email at online@qld.gov.au.