Summary
The mere idea of interacting with the DMV or the IRS makes any of us groan. But what if a dysfunctional government service is what’s standing between you and the ability to keep your house, feed your family, or get a kidney? Hear from Marina Martin, the most recent Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, about the trials, tribulations, and ultimate successes of her team’s fight to get usable healthcare application into the hands of our nation’s Veterans. She’ll cover key tactics for leaders in bureaucracies of all sizes to prioritize and drive the end user amid regulations, red tape, and committee meetings through stories from her five years in the federal government.
Key Insights
-
•
Despite 20 million veterans, only 8 submitted health care applications online due to convoluted forms and inconsistent hospital systems.
-
•
Veterans often face steep barriers from multiple disconnected VA websites and numerous logins, totaling over a thousand sites and dozens of credentials.
-
•
Direct conversations with veterans, like Dominic, revealed critical UX pain points invisible to VA staff focused on brute forcing paperwork.
-
•
Veterans want straightforward, easily understandable digital experiences over complicated government websites.
-
•
The vets.gov platform instantly enrolled 369,000 veterans, demonstrating the power of user-centered design in government.
-
•
Cross-silo collaboration between doctors and claims processors enabled a system that translated complex medical exams into legal disability decisions quickly.
-
•
Bureaucratic resistance to cloud computing was overcome by rigorously fulfilling all security paperwork and demonstrating improved investigative access.
-
•
Engaging with bureaucracy’s existing processes instead of circumventing them ensures sustainable transformational change.
-
•
Veterans prefer the option to personally tell their story during appeals, but need clear, honest information to make informed choices.
-
•
Lessons learned at the VA regarding user experience and organizational silos are now being applied to improve foster care systems for 400,000 kids.
Notable Quotes
"Most people think that veterans in America automatically get health care. That is not the case."
"Only eight people filled out the online application out of over 847,000 pending."
"Veterans don’t use the internet was the common excuse we heard, but that was simply not true."
"Dominic had tried to apply 12 times and kept running into PDF and terminology problems."
"This new vets.gov site is extremely easy. I have not had this level of ease with a government website at all."
"Every experience at the VA is broken in its own way."
"By getting all the people in one room — doctors and claims processors — we had them demonstrate their processes to each other. Minds blown."
"You cannot just say, ‘Go learn the cloud tech in a weekend’ to someone who’s been an expert for 20 years."
"We wrote one great security narrative and then just copied and pasted it into every other piece of paperwork."
"We got an official memo from the inspector general saying they preferred logical cloud access over physical access."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We did a blended approach with a visual refresh first to minimize differences between old and new and buy time."
Malini RaoLessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey
June 9, 2021
"Selection bias, overgeneralization, data variability, and time constraints are common challenges to synthesis."
Katie HansenFinding the unknown in the known: Harnessing meta-analysis and literature review
March 12, 2025
"Design impact doesn’t exist separate from the work with others – it’s part of the initiative's success."
Peter MerholzThe Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX
July 13, 2023
"There are so many different variations of repositories, from research libraries to databases cataloging atomic insights."
Maria Rosala Shivanjali M.Research Repositories
March 12, 2026
"Gesture and embodied actions will be a key tool for understanding user experience as computing moves beyond traditional screen-based interactions."
Dane DeSutterKeeping the Body in Mind: What Gestures and Embodied Actions Tell You That Users May Not
March 26, 2024
"Many times when planning to hire, we first assess our team competencies to identify the necessary talent."
Ebru NamaldiDesigning the Designer’s Journey: Scaling Teams, Culture, and Growth Through DesignOps
September 11, 2025
"Civic designers are in a privileged position; with privilege comes the power to empower the voices of those we serve."
Aaron Stienstra Lashanda HodgeLeveraging Civic Design to Advance Equity and Rebuild Trust in the US Federal Government
December 8, 2021
"Co-creation is the single best way to get people to really buy into the ideas and use the design system properly."
Dave Malouf Amy ThibodeauPanel: Design Systems and Documentation
November 7, 2017
"All models are wrong, but some are useful."
Scott PlewesWhy Isn't Your UX Approach Going Viral?: A Mathematical Model
March 28, 2023
