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Fireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka
Summary
For our second gathering of the Civic Design Community, we’ll learn from Jennifer Pahlka, founder and former Executive Director of Code for America who served. as US Deputy Chief Technology Officer from June 2013 to June 2014 and helped found the United States Digital Service. We’ll explore the importance of designers inside and outside government moving upstream to work alongside policymakers to make alliances and push back when needed to strengthen conditions for designers and digital technologists to do work that delivers improved outcomes for residents and citizens.
Key Insights
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Civic Tech work is not just implementation; it must influence policymaking for real impact.
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The Boston school selection project revealed how policy assumptions (e.g., walking distance) need revising based on implementation feedback.
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Traditional government projects often lack timely feedback loops between policy writers and implementers, leading to failures.
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Healthcare.gov’s failure catalyzed the creation of the U.S. Digital Service and a new model focused on agile, collaborative development.
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Long-term embedding of designers and technologists in government enables deeper learning and more effective change.
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Many career public servants do user research unofficially but need permission and training to do it effectively.
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Low trust in government systems causes users, such as doctors interacting with CMS portals, to feel frustrated and opt out.
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Successful Civic Tech requires partnerships that blend technology, policy, and frontline user understanding.
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Private sector frameworks like Customer Experience (CX) may not fully apply to public services without adaptation.
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Community support and strong relationships are essential for sustaining Civic Tech efforts within challenging government environments.
Notable Quotes
"I was largely wrong about how we thought technology and design would just implement policy."
"People implementing policy see the problems with the policy long before anyone else does."
"The policy was about walking distance as the crow flies, but that wasn’t walkable—so the policy needed to change."
"In traditional government projects, policy writers are often gone long before implementations fail or need revising."
"Healthcare.gov was a blow, but it opened the door to new ways to work in government technology."
"If leaders tell me to build a concrete boat, I will build a concrete boat—and that’s damaging to government."
"Designing a service is really designing a new relationship between government and people, who come with enormous baggage."
"User research in government is often done without knowing what it’s called, and people aren’t always empowered to do it."
"We need to push back when we see the concrete boat coming, but it’s really hard to know how."
"Community and ‘the phone a friend’ are what get you through the hardest parts of working in government."
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