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.
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.
"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?
Except not a caricature, because the gov website is even worse.
