Trump’s .gov redesign plan spawns AI-designed website horrors
▼ Summary
– Trump’s National Design Studio (NDS) was created by executive order in August to overhaul 27,000 government websites in three years using AI.
– DOGE’s deep cuts dismantled the 18F technology unit and restructured the US Digital Service, making NDS’s task harder.
– Only 30% of government websites used USWDS standards by mid-2023, and the USWDS team was reduced to one employee after Trump took office.
– NDS’s biggest achievement is modernizing the federal retirement system, but former workers say the project was underway before NDS existed.
– NDS has faced backlash for relying too heavily on AI and failing to test for ADA compliance, with most agencies now resisting collaboration.
President Donald Trump’s ambitious plan to “fill the digital potholes” across federal websites, relying heavily on AI-driven redesign tools, is off to a rocky start. The initiative, launched via executive order last August, established the National Design Studio (NDS) ,a temporary, DOGE-like unit answering directly to the president. Its mission: define new standards for the US Web Design System (USWDS) and overhaul all 27,000 dot-gov websites within three years. Trump envisioned that by the end of the “America by Design” push, the government’s design language would be both more usable and visually appealing.
But that monumental task,assigned to a small team with an aggressive deadline,was made even harder by DOGE’s deep cuts to agencies that previously handled government web improvements. Those cuts included dismantling the 18F technology unit and restructuring the US Digital Service into DOGE itself.
The teams that once managed these efforts understood the immense difficulty of getting every federal agency to adopt new web standards. They spent years pushing agencies to comply with USWDS guidelines, yet only 30 percent of government websites used them as of mid-2023, according to NextGov. Adding to the challenge, the USWDS team,originally created in 2015 to ensure websites were accessible and mobile-friendly,was reduced to just one full-time employee after Trump took office.
Few would argue against the need to modernize government websites. But roughly a year into NDS’s existence, the results have been minimal.
The group’s most notable accomplishment has been modernizing the federal retirement system. However, former government workers have accused the Trump administration of claiming “false victories and overstated credit,” pointing out that the project was already underway before NDS was created.
Beyond that, the NDS’s output has been sparse, with few launches and significant backlash from design experts. Critics argue that the team relies too heavily on AI and has failed to test sites for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. As scrutiny of NDS has intensified, most agencies are now resisting engagement with the team over adopting new web standards, according to sources familiar with the situation.
(Source: Ars Technica)
