18F [1] was the government’s design group, and did incredible work to improve the level of visual, UX, and UI design as well as usability across federal government websites. They created standards, led trainings and workshops, and were a go-to resource for people in and outside of the government.
You may have heard about the US Digital Service, but 18F were equally rockstar-level in the local community. Highly dedicated civil servants who were very good at what they did and very good at communicating it to others.
In May, DOGE unceremoniously gutted the department and shut it down.
Thankfully, they’ve archived their guides on an external site [2]. I didn’t even work for the federal government but I used to use these all the time when I was a product manager.
If you happen to see a resume come across your desk from someone who worked at 18F, jump on that. You’re lucky.
DOGE is/was on a mission regardless of their awareness of it. The mission is much larger than a single department or the patsy who was running it.
In other words, the murdering of sanity in government has just began, many will suffer, none of the people who supported this lunacy will escape the suffering, but of course, telling them that is a complete waste of time.
> What kind of people are going to sign up for this when your administration has been so hostile to kind, caring, empathetic individuals who are equipped to do this work?
"Ok, I'm imagining myself as a fentanyl dealer. Now I don't want to go to jail for selling fentanyl. Someone died from overdosing on my fentanyl and I don't want to get caught."
"Wow I guess we don't want to put drug dealers in jail then."
Couldn't Mariann Budde advance a much more productive conversation by being empathetic with someone like, say, me?
its TDS, I had a spell of it in 2016. I believe at least some are trying to get it into that catalog of mental health disorders. The actual feeling I can recall is very similar to when I was really down on my luck, no car, and I had my bike stolen. I can understand and am empathetic to fellow sufferers, being a victim of folks who mean you harm for whatever reason is never fun, but at least with TDS you are surrounded by millions of other victims so you have folks to commiserate with.
For people outside DC:
18F [1] was the government’s design group, and did incredible work to improve the level of visual, UX, and UI design as well as usability across federal government websites. They created standards, led trainings and workshops, and were a go-to resource for people in and outside of the government.
You may have heard about the US Digital Service, but 18F were equally rockstar-level in the local community. Highly dedicated civil servants who were very good at what they did and very good at communicating it to others.
In May, DOGE unceremoniously gutted the department and shut it down.
Thankfully, they’ve archived their guides on an external site [2]. I didn’t even work for the federal government but I used to use these all the time when I was a product manager.
If you happen to see a resume come across your desk from someone who worked at 18F, jump on that. You’re lucky.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F
[2] https://guides.18f.org/
DOGE is/was on a mission regardless of their awareness of it. The mission is much larger than a single department or the patsy who was running it.
In other words, the murdering of sanity in government has just began, many will suffer, none of the people who supported this lunacy will escape the suffering, but of course, telling them that is a complete waste of time.
For clarity, this is a parody of this site:
https://americabydesign.gov
Looks very "rage-vibe" coded. I like the "©2025 The American People" at bottom right.
> What kind of people are going to sign up for this when your administration has been so hostile to kind, caring, empathetic individuals who are equipped to do this work?
"Ok, I'm imagining myself as a fentanyl dealer. Now I don't want to go to jail for selling fentanyl. Someone died from overdosing on my fentanyl and I don't want to get caught."
"Wow I guess we don't want to put drug dealers in jail then."
Couldn't Mariann Budde advance a much more productive conversation by being empathetic with someone like, say, me?
Who? Is this a designer? A group? A pissed LLM?
Well that's a hostile web design with its poor choice of fonts
It's a caricature of https://americabydesign.gov/, which makes similar choices.
Except not a caricature, because the gov website is even worse.
You seem... upset
its TDS, I had a spell of it in 2016. I believe at least some are trying to get it into that catalog of mental health disorders. The actual feeling I can recall is very similar to when I was really down on my luck, no car, and I had my bike stolen. I can understand and am empathetic to fellow sufferers, being a victim of folks who mean you harm for whatever reason is never fun, but at least with TDS you are surrounded by millions of other victims so you have folks to commiserate with.