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
"Figma files are no longer just a collection of visual elements; designers actively shape product features now."
Ryan Matthew Alex KurchevBridging Design and Code: AI-Powered Design System Integration
September 11, 2025
"Design methods we love, like sticky notes, aren’t accessible to everyone and can exclude some people."
Saara Kamppari-MillerInclusive Design is DesignOps
September 29, 2021
"You constantly perform calculus every day figuring out where you can be your authentic self."
Lisanne NormanWhy I Left Research
March 27, 2023
"Start with the problem, not the solution when partnering with engineers."
Dawn ResselFull-Stack User Experiences: A Marriage of Design and Technology
June 9, 2016
"Navigating uncertainty is part of our work; uncertainty actually becomes a catalyst we didn’t think we needed."
Jamika BurgeEmbracing change: Navigating shifting landscapes with compassion and agency
March 11, 2025
"The BICEPS model helps understand what our co-workers need to feel supported and purposeful."
Christopher Taylor Edwards Valerie RoskeDesign as a Team Practice, A Practical Guide to Cross-functional Collaboration
September 30, 2021
"Language in consent forms doesn’t have to be complicated; plain language and user-centered design can make it accessible."
Phil HeskethDesigning Accessible Research Workflows
September 29, 2021
"The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work of peace and destroys the root of inner wisdom."
Luz BratcherThis Is a Talk for Tired People
June 10, 2022
"We end up with this junk drawer phenomenon with spaghetti-fication of different insights being passed around with no clarity."
Jon White Erin MayUnsticking Research for Better Information Flow
March 11, 2026
