Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
Gold
Thursday, November 17, 2022 • Civic Design 2022
Share the love for this talk
Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
Speakers: Shawna Hein and Kevin Hoffman
Link:

Summary

At a large U.S. federal agency, we've partnered across agency personnel, vendors, and contracts to build a single design culture that delivers an exceptional customer experience while meeting evolving business needs. We’ve built collaboration and critique rituals, tooling approaches, and design governance processes to organize 75+ designers into a unified practice all working together on a single, digital experience. We'll share what worked, what didn't, and provide a set of principles and tactics you can use right away – in any government agency – to begin building your own cohesive design practice, even when your ecosystem is anything but cohesive.

Key Insights

  • Cohesion in Civic design requires structured coordination among various teams.

  • User-centered design is crucial for improving the digital experience of veterans.

  • Creating reliable user access is essential for conducting effective research.

  • Collaboration tools like Slack can facilitate cross-team communication.

  • Standardized design practices lead to consistency in user experience across agencies.

  • Centralized leadership helps align multiple contracting teams toward common goals.

  • Visible and accessible past research helps prevent redundancy in design efforts.

  • Budgeting in Civic design should evolve to accommodate agile practices.

  • Clear processes are necessary for decision making in diverse design environments.

  • Involving designers in early decision-making enhances their ability to focus on their specialties.

Notable Quotes

"We take a more cohesive approach where we have government employees dedicated to hosting and planning."

"For a good human-centered design to happen, you have to have access to the right humans."

"Throwing a bunch of smart people at a problem alone doesn’t typically result in a positive outcome."

"Designers are notoriously tied to their tools for many reasons."

"Giving folk useful constraints is important when there’s a landscape as large as ours."

"Clear processes for escalation and decision-making are necessary to encourage collaboration."

"We’ve seen a growth in the usage of self-service tools, meaning veterans are getting the benefits they deserve."

"Giving designers access to users for research is not enough to make things cohesive."

"We encourage regular reliable access to users for our own designers."

"We wanted to make patterns visible as soon as possible to other designers."

More Videos

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Inclusive design is really about a process not about a result."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

May 26, 2022

Rusha Sopariwala

"Collectives are communities of practice individuals that have an interest in a particular topic."

Rusha Sopariwala

Remote, Together: Craft and Collaboration Across Disciplines, Borders, Time Zones, and a Design Org of 170+

June 9, 2022

Tess Dixon

"We need to take care of the basics for our teams and create opportunities for them to thrive."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Greg Petroff

"You should focus on your strengths and offset them with others' weaknesses."

Greg Petroff

Design is the Differentiator: Bringing New Design Innovations to a Very Antiquated and Very Large Industry

June 9, 2021

Kim Fellman Cohen

"What if your team had a dedicated resource to solve these problems?"

Kim Fellman Cohen

Measuring the Designer Experience

October 23, 2019

Catt Small

"One closed door can lead to interesting momentum."

Catt Small Micah Bennett Brian Carr Jessica Harllee

What's Next for ICs: Exploring Staff and Principal Designer Roles

February 22, 2024

Jodi Forlizzi

"AI is poised to have a similar impact as electricity did historically."

Jodi Forlizzi

Design and AI innovation

June 5, 2024

Samuel Proulx

"I'm Sam Pru, the Accessibility Evangelist here at Fable."

Samuel Proulx Laur Baek

Inclusive Research: Debunking Myths and Getting Started

March 12, 2025

Séamus Byrne

"If you see a dancing monkey, you know what you got to do, right?"

Séamus Byrne

Aligning Teams with Choreography

January 8, 2024