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

  • 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."

Ask the Rosenbot
Jesse Zolna
Inviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Sam Ladner
How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Erin Weigel
Get Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Bud Caddell
DesignOps Community Sensing Session
2021 • DesignOps Community
Failure Friday #4: Invisible Work: How I Stalled My Career by Not Showing My Work
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Katie Johnson
Disrupting generative AI products with just-in-time consumer insights
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Marisa Bernstein
It Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
A PM State of Mind: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 1
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Ed Mullen
Designing the Unseen: Enabling Institutions to Build Public Trust
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Gina Mendolia
Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
William Newton
How to Lead With Data, and Without Data
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Bill Scott
Lean Engineering: Engineering for Learning and Experimentation in the Enterprise
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
Pulse Check: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 2
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Josh Clark
Sentient Design: New Design Patterns for New Experiences (3rd of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Leah Buley
Closing Plenary: The Crisis of Digital
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Dave Hora
Research in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations
2025 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Dave Hoffer

"People eat with their eyes before they eat with their mouths — polish makes a big difference."

Dave Hoffer Joanne Weaver

UX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer

May 21, 2025

Kristin Skinner

"The future of education lies in collaboration and adaptation."

Kristin Skinner

Five Years of DesignOps

September 29, 2021

Robert Fabricant

"Knowledge sits on a shelf. Understanding is an active way to engage and connect people."

Robert Fabricant

Shifting dynamics: The evolving relationship between researchers, participants, and organizational systems

March 11, 2025

Nick Lewis

"Be curious, keep learning, and believe you can make a difference in sustainability."

Nick Lewis

Designing and building low-carbon websites independently

November 18, 2025

Bria Alexander

"If you are not on Slack, you are missing out on one of the biggest and most interactive parts of our conference."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

June 10, 2021

Iram Shah

"An intelligent person understands what is being said; a wise person understands what is left unsaid."

Iram Shah

Closing Keynote: The View from the Top

June 4, 2019

Fisayo Osilaja

"After each interview, I put the transcript into ChatGPT to get three key takeaways I could quickly share with stakeholders."

Fisayo Osilaja

[Demo] The AI edge: From researcher to strategist

June 4, 2024

Samuel Proulx

"I kind of use headings to get an overview of what's on a page, like a table of contents."

Samuel Proulx Laur Baek

Inclusive Research: Debunking Myths and Getting Started

March 12, 2025

Jamika Burge

"Navigating uncertainty is part of our work; uncertainty actually becomes a catalyst we didn’t think we needed."

Jamika Burge

Embracing change: Navigating shifting landscapes with compassion and agency

March 11, 2025