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
"After redesign, the bank’s application ease of use improved, task success went up, and time on task dropped by a full minute."
Dana Bishop2022: The Year UX Demonstrates its Business Impact
March 11, 2022
"Designers have the power to convene people around an idea and set the agenda."
Deanna Washington Tim Allen Jeff Courcelle John Maeda Matt Raw Erica TjaderScaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
October 4, 2023
"Many companies view design operations as a nice to have, rather than essential, making these roles prime targets in layoffs."
Angelos ArnisNavigating the Rapid Shifts in Tech's Turbulent Terrain
October 2, 2023
"I can convert a screenshot into an editable mockup right inside Miro without bothering a designer."
Shipra Kayan Robert Kortenoeven Eileen TangEmerging principles for using AI in Design: What the product design team at Miro has learned from deeply integrating AI in their workflow
June 11, 2025
"Context management lets you tell the system what to look at, whether it’s files, folders, or highlighting specific image regions."
Luke WroblewskiDesigning AI Applications
March 5, 2026
"For early career UXers, compassion could be as simple as expressing gratitude for help."
Laine Riley ProkayHow DesignOps can Drive Inclusive Career Ladders for All
September 30, 2021
"We need to push back when we see the concrete boat coming, but it’s really hard to know how."
Sarah Brooks Jennifer PahlkaFireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka
October 21, 2021
"There’s still a need for human insight to understand behavior and apply meaningful design decisions."
Erin MaloneUnderstanding the past to prepare for the future
July 19, 2024
"If your company has customers with disabilities but no way to collect their feedback, you’re missing critical insights."
Sam ProulxAccessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
September 8, 2022
