Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
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."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"What you want is a multiplication so that you can have people do the same work but have more people doing it so you'll feel more important."
Fredrik MathesonFirst-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.
June 8, 2016
"Mental health first aiders take on responsibility beyond their role, so we must consider how this affects them."
Brian MossWhat Does it Mean to be a Resilient Research Team?
March 9, 2022
"There are competing variants in UX adoption like competing virus strains that can slow down change."
Scott PlewesWhy Isn't Your UX Approach Going Viral?: A Mathematical Model
March 28, 2023
"Full automation of research is simply not working."
Daniel Korczynski Justyna ParmeeFrom generic to contextual research insights with AI | Live Q&A
March 11, 2026
"If we improve areas of friction on behalf of the design department, people’s ability to achieve goals will increase."
Jacqui FreyFlow and Superfluidity for Design Orgs
November 7, 2018
"Research isn’t just about building a great product; it’s about having a great company and stronger internal bonds."
Nicole Wright Ned DwyerDemocratizing Research at HoneyBook
March 9, 2022
"Data can be seductive, but focusing only on clicks risks sacrificing the user perspective."
Christian Crumlish Aditi Ruiz Johanna Kollmann Catt SmallMorning Insights Panel
December 6, 2022
"The post-PC era has had more impact on enterprise UX and computing than any other factor in all history."
Mark TempletonCreating a Legacy: the ultimate experience
June 9, 2017
"The Shakers’ artifacts allowed moments of silence and moments of song—balancing rationality with spirit in design."
Daniel GloydWarming the User Experience: Lessons from America's first and most radical human-centered designers
May 9, 2024
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What strategies help uncover unique or surprising insights from qualitative data when using AI?
How did the concept and language of 'jobs' emerge alongside industrialization and corporate labor structures?
What historical precedents can help us understand current wealth concentration and potential progressive responses?