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IMHO UK currently holds the gold standard for this https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ Most/many government services us

IMHO UK currently holds the gold standard for this https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ 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.

mikeyouse 1y ago
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.
- infl8ed 1y ago
  Thanks! Guilty as charged of not fully reading through the piece before commenting :)
- mcosta 1y ago
  Was 18F working?
  - malcolmgreaves 1y ago
    Yes
    - mikeyouse 1y ago
      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.gov/guides/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250201222157/https://18f.gsa.g...
      - scroot 1y ago
        The guides have been archived on the "18F in exile" site for continued reliable public access [0][1] [0] https://guides.18f.org/ https://guides.18f.org/ [1] https://18f.org https://18f.org
belZaah 1y ago
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 good way of creating pressure, but as the current examples in both UK and US show, you can’t sustain that pressure for, say 30 years. Also, centralization neither scales very well nor is democratic as it centralizes control and removes responsibility from the service owners. So how do you have something placed fairly low in the government working horizontally effect meaningful change in other organizations? Have tried it in a few countries, have a few answers and many questions, AMA.
- bythreads 1y ago
  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
tempodox 1y ago
They are using a non-Arial font which already makes them better than 90% of what you see online.

mikeyouse 1y ago

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.

infl8ed 1y ago
Thanks! Guilty as charged of not fully reading through the piece before commenting :)
mcosta 1y ago
Was 18F working?
- malcolmgreaves 1y ago
  Yes
  - mikeyouse 1y ago
    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.gov/guides/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250201222157/https://18f.gsa.g...
    - scroot 1y ago
      The guides have been archived on the "18F in exile" site for continued reliable public access [0][1] [0] https://guides.18f.org/ https://guides.18f.org/ [1] https://18f.org https://18f.org

belZaah 1y ago

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 good way of creating pressure, but as the current examples in both UK and US show, you can’t sustain that pressure for, say 30 years. Also, centralization neither scales very well nor is democratic as it centralizes control and removes responsibility from the service owners. So how do you have something placed fairly low in the government working horizontally effect meaningful change in other organizations? Have tried it in a few countries, have a few answers and many questions, AMA.

bythreads 1y ago
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

tempodox 1y ago

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