18F
Resources on 18F
Deceptive Design: How to Identify and Combat Consequence Design —Consequence design is part of everyday life. Deceptive techniques like “dark patterns” and “hostile design” trick people into taking …
Foundations of Agile, Part I —18F’s Alan Atlas and Alan Brouilette cover the fundamentals of Agile.
Foundations of Agile, Part II —18F’s Alan Atlas and Alan Brouilette cover the fundamentals of Agile.
18F Research Guidelines —Covers the basic principles research: informing and getting consent, and managing personally identifiable information (PII)
Addressing Barriers to User-Centered Design —An overview of the most common barriers and how federal agencies might address them.
Managing Research Projects Remotely —Best practices for distributed teams.
18F De-risking Guides —The Federal Field Guide to De-risk Government Technology offers guidance to federal agencies on how to structure software development teams, …
Tips for capturing the best data from user interviews —How to ensure the most useful information makes its way back to your team for further analysis
18F Guide to Product Management —Best practices on doing product management well
Tools and Services
18F —We help government agencies fix technical problems, build products, and improve how government serves the public through technology.
News and Events on 18F
115 posts
Creating a Culture of Innovation at Your Agency—When we talk about innovation in government tech, what do we mean? During a recent project, 18F partnered with a government innovation lab to help them understand the impact innovation can have at their organization. — via 18F
The 18F Engineering Sandwich for Cloud-based Web Apps—18F Engineering is often thought of as a technology shop, but that’s too broad. There are very few technology choices we actually make at the project level, so, more often than not, we combine a limited set of technologies to make our applications. To explain this, we’ll use the metaphor of a sandwich shop. — via 18F
Senior Executives Part 5: Use Stories as Leading Indicators—Executives often rely on productivity metrics to measure success, but these measures can obscure whether the software is actually working for users. Stories are a better resource to build a strategy between a senior executive and a product team. This is part five in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies. — via 18F
Senior Executives Part 4: Initiate More Direct Interaction To Build Rapport—It’s critical that senior executives and product teams make small decisions over time about important technology initiatives to be able to adjust plans as things change. How does that work? What works well? — via 18F
Senior Executives Part 3: Use Short-term Initiatives To Build Confidence in Long-term Decisions—Deadlines often force executives to make long-term decisions about technology without certainty it’ll be successful. Modern software development strategies help reduce this risk by leveraging a product team to incrementally test software upfront. — via 18F
Senior Executives Part 2: Work Outside the Traditional Hierarchy To Set up an Initiative for Success—In order to ultimately succeed at delivering human-centered software, two critical groups need to work closely together: the product team and a champions group. This is part two in a series on how senior executives and tech teams can be better allies. — via 18F
Senior Executives Are the Allies Tech Teams Need, Part 1—Successfully delivering software in government requires people to work differently. Without clear answers for how to do this, well-intentioned executives and teams default to existing processes that risk undermining their own success. This is part one in a series on how to evolve that relationship. — via 18F
What Agile Looks Like at the Office of Natural Resources Revenue—Agile at the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) started with 18F. They reflect on where they are today, five years later. — via DOI Revenue Data
Content Design for beta.ADA.gov: Writing for Action and Flexibility—18F worked with a team at the Department of Justice to redesign ADA.gov. They helped them launch beta.ada.gov, and designed new content for some of the most sought-after ADA topics. — via 18F
If you’re one of the many federal employees carrying out your mission through contracting, you might have an important question: how do I know if my contractor is doing a good job? Even if you don’t have a strong technical background, there are steps you can take to build your confidence in the project’s maintainability and sustainability. — via 18F
The Weekly Ship: What It Is, Why It’s Useful, and How To Create Your Own—The weekly ship has been a staple of 18F projects for years. It is a way to engage partners, inform teammates, and reflect on our work. — via 18F
Building a Tech Career in Government
A Dashboard for Privacy Offices—Through work funded by 10x, a team from 18F investigated how technology can help busy privacy offices manage your PII, and make their work more accessible and understandable for the public. — via 18F
A Federal Guide to De-risk Government Technology Projects—Written for cross-functional teams delivering IT services to their users, the Federal Field Guide to De-risk Government Technology offers guidance to federal agencies on how to structure software development teams, write contracts, and oversee agile software activities to reduce risks and improve outcomes for end-users. — via 18F
Transforming How DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Engages With the Public—In order to be more responsive to the public’s changing communication needs and the increased reporting volume, the Civil Rights Division, in close collaboration with 18F, has launched a user-friendly online submission experience at civilrights.justice.gov that transforms the way the Division collects, sorts, and responds to civil rights reports. — via 18F
