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The National Design Studio is a scam

chrbutler.com

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#51
post #45
post #11

IMHO UK currently holds the gold standard for this https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ Most/many government services use the standard design architecture and, although it is not perfect, it is several orders of magnitude better than I've seen elsewhere.

Former CTO of a country here. Anything GDS did filled me with deep envy: it was beautiful and made so much sense and I had none of it at my disposal. Then Brexit. I was there in GDS offices a few weeks after the vote and the organization was being dismantled under my very eyes. See, the trick with such endeavors is not what you can drive centrally, it’s what you can make others implement. Reporting to the Man is a go…

I've done the same for a multinational with 1000 franchises-like subcompanies - trying to get them to conform to horizontal guidance. It is an impossible task, noone takes it that serious and are focused on imminent kpi and okr's.

My only success has been internal reviews of wcag compliance and the threat of fines if found lacking.

But for non digital design its embarrassingly hard

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#53
post #11

IMHO UK currently holds the gold standard for this https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ Most/many government services use the standard design architecture and, although it is not perfect, it is several orders of magnitude better than I've seen elsewhere.

As mentioned in the piece - the designers at 18F were explicitly following the UKs lead here and were attempting to do just that before being DOGE’d in favor of some political hacks with no understanding or appreciation of the task at hand.

Was 18F working?

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#54
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned in the piece - the designers at 18F were explicitly following the UKs lead here and were attempting to do just that before being DOGE’d in favor of some political hacks with no understanding or appreciation of the task at hand.

Was 18F working?

Yes

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#55
post #11

IMHO UK currently holds the gold standard for this https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ Most/many government services use the standard design architecture and, although it is not perfect, it is several orders of magnitude better than I've seen elsewhere.

They are using a non-Arial font which already makes them better than 90% of what you see online.

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#56
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was 18F working?

Yes

Aside from all the actual success stories with products they rolled out, they'd built comprehensive guides for software procurement that were making every part of the government more efficient -- and then the ~arsonists~ experts at DOGE came through and deleted all of that work because some 'move fast and break things' toadies decided they didn't want to spend so much time on planning and they'd rather just build baby build.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250201222157/https://18f.gsa.g...

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#57

One of the things about the Apple Store, is that folks want what it sells. Because of that, they put up with it. Personally, I find the Apple Store to be a pain in the ass. The online version makes me a clickaholic, and the IRL version is very confusing. Government sites are very different. I have no opinion on the new position. I don’t know the guy, and don’t use AirBnb. I just find that the insistence on making gov…

Why would I ever go to a Microsoft store? To buy a Windows CD?

> Why would I ever go to a Microsoft store? To buy a Windows CD?

To get into the back of the line leading into the Apple Store which is ALWAYS packed.

Re: The National Design Studio is a scam

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes

Aside from all the actual success stories with products they rolled out, they'd built comprehensive guides for software procurement that were making every part of the government more efficient -- and then the ~arsonists~ experts at DOGE came through and deleted all of that work because some 'move fast and break things' toadies decided they didn't want to spend so much time on planning and they'd rather just build bab…

The guides have been archived on the "18F in exile" site for continued reliable public access [0][1]

[0] https://guides.18f.org/

[1] https://18f.org

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