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
"We made the conscious decision not to weaponize our product, even though it could have increased revenue and sales."
Mariah HayEthics in Tech Education: Designing to Provide Opportunity for All
June 14, 2018
"Designing for edge cases can lead to solutions everyone wants to use because they’re more comfortable and inclusive."
Billy CarlsonIdeation tips for Product Managers
December 6, 2022
"Sponsors make this conference possible, without them we wouldn't be here talking about some incredibly interesting things."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
September 30, 2021
"Time is often not discussed but is critical—deadlines, epics, sprints, and roadmap clarity are essential for both sides."
Séamus ByrneAligning Teams with Choreography
January 8, 2024
"Men consistently report higher incomes than women across years, but don't jump to conclusions without digging deeper."
Marc FonteijnFirst Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report
December 4, 2024
"Only eight people filled out the online application out of over 847,000 pending."
Marina MartinLives on the Line: The Stakes of UX at the Scale of Government
June 14, 2018
"Reflexivity lets us examine our beliefs and practices during research to understand how we show up."
Bilan HashiThe Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research
March 10, 2021
"We decided with the COP to view our budget as a moral document."
Alexia Cohen Adriane AckermanIncreasing Health Equity and Improving the Service Experience for Under-Served Latine Communities in Arizona
December 4, 2024
"We’ve been dealing with assistance since spellcheckers in the 1970s evolved to grammar checkers and beyond."
Christopher NoesselAI of the now: Designing for Agents
July 31, 2024
