Earlier this month, the United States Digital Service (USDS) celebrated its two-year anniversary, reflecting on successful website redesign efforts such as Vets.gov and myUSCIS.gov. Although it seemed a “daunting” venture at first, the White House tech start-up has succeeded in deploying expert teams to “untangle the most important government services,” which the organization states as its chief mandate.
In its anniversary post, USDS also highlighted the Digital Services Playbook, an outline of thirteen practices for Federal agencies that, when followed in succession, help developers to deliver accessible, easy-to-use websites. These tips include
“Understanding what the people need (Play 1),”
“Making [websites] simple and intuitive (Play 3)”
“Build the service using Agile and iterative practices (Play 4)”
DSFederal has followed Playbook principles on design and development efforts supporting the Department of Health and Human Services, including HealthIT.gov and the Common Data Element Repository (CDER) Library.