Designing and building for public service users

When a government provides digital services through websites and mobile applications, responsibility plays a key role on multiple levels. The software should be developed and operated responsibly. The services need to be built so that users trust the service and trust that public money is spent well. This impacts design and architecture alike. In this talk Erik will share insights on how the German Government's digital unit is tackling these challenges. The concepts and techniques are not limited to the public sector, they are useful when building commercial and educational services, too.

One example are design systems. They ensure that services built by different units present a familiar look and feel, are intuitive to use, and adhere to strict accessibility standards. Early indications are that they also addresses usability and consistency problems that creep in when using agentic coding. Complementing a shared open source design system are an umbrella brand, a service standard, which even made it into a DIN spec, and, further down the stack, components for foundational functionality like authentication and messaging. Beyond well understood services, especially when exploring the potential of generative AI, a more explorative approach is chosen.