Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Centralizing research participant recruitment and documentation streamlines user access for multiple contract teams, improving research quality and inclusivity.
-
•
Collaboration across contractor boundaries is critical and can be facilitated by shared communication tools like Slack and regular cross-team meetings.
-
•
Normalizing design tools and processes across contractors ensures consistency, speeds onboarding, and prevents duplicated effort in maintaining design systems.
-
•
A governance-driven collaboration cycle with strict adherence to accessibility and user experience standards is required to launch VA digital applications.
-
•
Making design work and patterns visible early prevents redundant efforts and clarifies which user problems are already addressed.
-
•
Dedicated centralized expert teams in accessibility, content, IA, and QA free designers to specialize and maintain quality in large-scale enterprise projects.
-
•
Legal constraints, such as the Paperwork Reduction Act, limit research interactions, requiring balancing ethical concerns with agile user research.
-
•
Contracts structured around individual products rather than whole user experiences create challenges in coordination and require extra collaborative effort.
-
•
Fostering psychological safety and informal feedback venues enables design teams from multiple companies to share work openly and improve outcomes.
-
•
The VA’s approach has led to millions of veterans using self-service tools monthly, highlighting the impact of cohesive government design practices.
Notable Quotes
"Throwing a potluck sounds easy until you realize you don’t have a group that magically reads each other’s minds, resulting in a random table of snack foods."
"Our digital experience group acts like hosts and planners making sure veterans sit down to a cohesive, inclusive meal, not just disparate dishes."
"We have over 30 contracting teams spread across roughly 10 vendors all working on parts of the veteran experience landscape."
"A government designer aims to reduce UX variation while a contractor may optimize only their single product, creating potential conflicts."
"Reliable access to veterans and other users is fundamental to running quality, inclusive research across many teams and products."
"Slack channels and weekly meetings encourage cross-contract collaboration, avoiding duplication and sharing learnings across teams."
"The collaboration cycle requires following standards for accessibility, content, design system usage, and IA or you don’t launch your product."
"We treat our shared tooling and design system as a product with a dedicated team maintaining reusable components and governance."
"Designers contribute experimental patterns back to the design system early, making their work visible even before full validation."
"We’ve seen self-service tool usage grow from hundreds to millions of veterans served monthly after launching a unified VA platform."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The project was staffed through a revolving door of panic hires who were expected to run from day one."
Tanya SnookDesigning the team experience: Building culture through onboarding
November 4, 2021
"You have to ask, what are we deciding, and what are we quitting, on a regular basis."
Adam ThomasSurvival Metrics – Making Change in a Fast, Data-Informed, and Politically Safe Way
December 6, 2022
"Research is like a compass, not a map—it provides direction but not all the details along the way."
Cassini Nazir Meah LinThe Dangers of Empathy: Toward More Responsible Design Research
March 27, 2023
"Situational use cases help us consider the realities outside the business problem that impact user success."
Megan Clegg Michael Haggerty-Villa Alexis MorinSpace for Everyone: Reframing Accessibility Through a Wider Lens
June 10, 2021
"Political leaders had to show up and just listen, without campaigning or trying to say anything."
Kyria Stephens Marlon KernerPower to Heal: Civic Design in the Aftermath of Tragedy
November 17, 2022
"AI-generated imagery feels too shiny and perfect — unlike the human-made objects that carry flaws and presence of the maker."
Uday Gajendar Adam RichardsonFrom AI to Zeitgeist: Theory as the design antidote to AI hype
March 27, 2025
"We’re focused on the outcome; as soon as we count off the song, it’s going."
Jim KalbachJazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
June 4, 2019
"We made this move in January 2020 — our research and insights team moved out of UX but stayed within product organizations."
Nalini KotamrajuResearch After UX
March 25, 2024
"If the smartest person in the room always takes a certain role, then it’s not a learning culture."
Julie Norvaisas Pert Eilers Mina JonssonBack to basics, or start from scratch?
March 12, 2025
