One of the problems we have in public policy is that wonks don’t give any consideration to how their ideas will collide with actual human behavior. Take our Trump Accounts. There are millions of parents who will in theory benefit enormously from this investment in their kids’ future, but the policy does no good if parents never find out how to sign up for it.
From day one of our administration we’ve tried to think outside the box on problems like this. That’s why Elon recruited the best and brightest engineers and designers to help us make government more efficient. Some of those same exceptional design and software talents, under @jgebbia’s leadership, have been working for months at National Design Studio on a different problem: making government programs like the Trump Accounts more user friendly.
With the Trump Accounts we’ve met people where they are. Instead of expecting them to navigate a ton of complicated forms on https://t.co/4MbCJUKklg, we’ve built out a simple, easy-to-use app to sign parents up. The app helps us market the program and sign up users, and deploying it this early does something else: it gives our engineers a pilot program to test out Treasury’s digital back-end systems and iron out kinks in advance of the delivery of the funds later this summer. So, parents, sign up now, and help us invest in your kids for tomorrow.
Because great policy only works when people can actually use it. That is the power of design. When government is easier to understand, easier to navigate, and easier to trust, people benefit. The American experience should be as great as the American promise.
