Getting Out from Under Everyone: How to Escape the Paralysis of Getting Started
Summary
Russ, a manager at 18F, describes the formation of 18F as a continuation of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program initiated by Todd Park in 2012. Starting from a small group inside the General Services Administration, 18F grew rapidly to nearly 200 federal employees distributed nationwide. Russ highlights the organization's mission: partnering with government agencies to improve digital services without arrogance but with a focus on hard work and public benefit. He explains how 18F established its 'partnership playbook' to clarify expectations and scope, embracing open source principles with all their projects publicly available. Russ emphasizes the critical role of user-centered agile methods and content design, noting 18F's content team comprises about 20% of designers and has made a significant impact. To combat internal inconsistency as the team grew, designers led a 'skunkworks' project to identify and share design methods, creating open source design method cards that improved confidence and shared language internally and with partners. Russ also explains 18F’s effort to create open US web design standards that prioritize ease of use, adaptability, accessibility, and consistency across thousands of federal websites. He shares the story of the Federal Interagency Fourth Grade Park Pass project with the Department of Interior, where content was simplified to a fourth-grade reading level by Emily Barnes to improve accessibility and adoption, resulting in over 500,000 passes downloaded shortly after launch. Throughout, Russ underscores the importance of designing for the team and system first to better serve other government partners and improve citizen experiences. He closes by advocating for setting limits, establishing shared language, reusable patterns, and equalizing all roles on project teams to overcome paralysis and move work forward.
Key Insights
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18F originated from the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, evolving from short fellowships to a permanent agency within the GSA.
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18F deliberately hires distributed talent nationwide, valuing remote work to access the best people regardless of location.
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The partnership playbook clarifies 18F’s scope and working style, helping agencies understand what work 18F does and does not do.
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Open source and transparency are foundational; all 18F projects are public on GitHub for anyone to use or adapt.
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Content design is integral to user experience; 20% of 18F’s design team focuses on content, emphasizing plain language.
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As the design team grew, a skunkworks project identified common design methods and created open source method cards to promote shared language and confidence.
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18F developed US Web Design Standards prioritizing ease of use, adaptability, accessibility (508/ADA), and consistency without mandating uniformity.
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There are tens of thousands of federal websites with wildly inconsistent UI elements, increasing cognitive load for users.
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The Federal Interagency Fourth Grade Park Pass project showed the impact of simplifying language and content to the user’s level, greatly increasing adoption.
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Success requires designing internal systems and processes first to effectively serve partners and create reusable patterns across government.
Notable Quotes
"We’re not arrogant enough to believe that we’re here to save the government; our mission is to work with smart people inside government."
"If you’re the best front-end designer in West River Idaho with a good internet connection, we want to talk to you."
"We are open source. Our work is public. You can fork it and have the code. That’s pretty fair as taxpayers."
"Content designers make a significant difference; if the US government values content, why don’t other organizations?"
"We’re users of the system. We have to make sure it works well for us for it to work well for others."
"One of our biggest pushes was accessibility out of the box—508 and ADA compliance can’t be overlooked."
"You aren’t your user, but we are users of this system, so we know what we need to make it better."
"Sharing a language of design gave us and our partners a consistent experience and the confidence to work together."
"There are so many special snowflake button styles across government websites it adds cognitive load jumping between agencies."
"With the right name, content, and focus you can reach a limited but impactful audience, like fourth graders for national parks."
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