Aqua is a web-based UI component library built on top of the Vue.js framework. It was created in 2019 by the Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation (CEDSCI) development team at the U.S. Census Bureau for use on data.census.gov website and has been in active development since. It is considered production-ready but, like most web development tools, is undergoing constant maintenance and improvements extending into the future.
Aqua provides a multitude of ready-to-use common UI components, such as buttons, checkboxes, dropdowns, tree views, etc. It also provides some layout components, a typography system, a color palette, standardized 12 column spacing classes, and some layout classes.
The use of Aqua allows for rapid implementation of UX designs and a consistent user experience across all parts of the site (component appearances, interactions, spacing, color palette, etc).
There are many planned updates and improvements, including ultimately making Aqua an NPM package. Those will be coming in future iterations.
Issues:
We appreciate any feedback you would like to provide us; please post any questions that you may have in the GitHub issues section.
Contributors:
This library was developed as a collaborative effort. Contributions were made by a team of developers from CEDSCI, who were instrumental in the design, implementation, and testing of this software.
Recommended Citation:
U.S. Census Bureau, “Aqua Software,” 1.2.2 [GitHub], 2025, https://github.com/uscensusbureau/aqua, accessed on date.