USDS is 6! Celebrating Our Anniversary
By: U.S. Digital Service
Tags: Team And Culture, Engineering, Civictech, Design, Government

Mollie was the 5th USDSer and was instrumental in shaping our brand by designing the USDS wings. The USDS mascot, Mollie the Crab, is named after her.

Mollie Ruskin (alum. 2014–2017), Designer, USDS HQ

I joined USDS in its infancy, arguably before it was even born. I was a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the VA in 2013, the year infamously marked by the failure of healthcare.gov. I was part of a cast of characters who spent much of that year working to make the most of this epic stumble — drafting new policies, standing up new products and guidelines, launching pilots, demonstrating all the ways government could learn from this moment to embrace 21st century human-centered service delivery.

In the summer of 2014, my tour at the VA was ending and I was full intention to return home to NYC. But, just as I was wrapping up, it seemed that much of our endeavors throughout the year prior were beginning to take hold. 18F had been up and running for a few months, and now it seemed this thing which once seemed a pipe dream, the U.S. Digital Service, was finally coming to be.

But, I was skeptical. I had come to DC for a more holistic, less technology-focused vision of making government services inclusive, respectful, and human-centered in every touch point; not just the digital ones. In those days, design was a bit of an afterthought, icing atop the government modernization cake, with open data and software reliability taking center stage. I was worried I’d have to struggle to keep the values of design and equity at the fore, that the challenge of the undertaking would outweigh any potential impact.

There were a crew of friends and colleagues encouraging me to stay and help build USDS for just this reason. I recall a dizzying stroll of laps around EEOB with Erie Meyer; I was nervous but Erie was, as always, exhilarated. She reinforced that the things I cared about — making government services designed around real human experiences and building a diverse and inclusive team to do this work — were the very reasons I had to stick around. She’s very persuasive.

I signed on the dotted line and stayed at USDS through January of 2017.

What was USDS like during that time? I mean, listen: it was bananas.

We were building a startup inside of the federal government. The challenges of both of those things bounced off of each other raucously. We had to figure it all out from scratch: how to structure ourselves, how to bridge tech and government culture, how to pick projects, how to get approval for literally everything, how to hire, how to build inclusively and thoughtfully, how to deliver value. And then how to do it all within highly restrictive firewalls, all the standard process trappings of bureaucracy and under the scrutiny of Congress and the American people.

It was high stress but it was also full of possibility. We were trying to do things we really had no idea were possible, having meetings to win over incredibly powerful, incredibly risk averse people, working on super high impact, hugely important projects… all while stuffed into a tiny space, interviewing candidates in literal utility closets and collaborating on values statements in Github markup.

Quiet space for phone calls and interviewing candidates has been hard to come by at USDS HQ from the earliest days.

It may sound glamorous but it was genuinely incredibly hard work. Everything felt urgent and important. Everything was new and untested and on fire. But folks threw themselves at the work with gusto and meaningful things came.

A few moments stand out in my mind as defining highlights of my tour.

I conducted user research in government offices, libraries, community centers, on streets, in parks and in peoples homes across more than 10 states. But hands down the most memorable was usability testing a new background check tool for the FBI at a gun show attended by 60,000 people in Las Vegas.

That gun show in Vegas.

I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor in a corner of the USDS HQ, drinking bubble tea from Teaism, making journey maps, or writing out research plans.

I pitched the idea for what would become the U.S. Web Design System to a panel of government officials by unfurling a giant “quilt” of printed images of dozens government websites.

Pitching USWDS to multi-agency stakeholders.

The USDS office was a dirty mess for the first year and we decided to freshen the place up for our first holiday party in 2014. I quickly doodled the unofficial USDS insignia — the emoji strong arm, computer, and USA flag — on a whiteboard; which I understand is somehow still there to this day. Somehow drawing an emoji feels very representative of a lot of USDS life in those early days. 💪🏽 🖥 🇺🇸

The emoji whiteboard during our FIRST holiday party in 2014.

We still use the emoji whiteboard today!

USDS grew and changed immensely during my time.

I think I was the 5th person on staff and by the time I left, we had hired over 200 people.

It’s hard to convey how much it changed. We were just one small messy crew in the beginning, gradually unfolding into teams at different agencies and eventually fully spinning off into discrete agencies organizations.

I stayed at HQ throughout this, watching as new recruits would arrive with a mix of ambition and feeling overwhelmed. Then, gradually get their sea legs to navigate the complexities of what it takes to do this work. Within a year, there were more names than I could remember and ever more projects and teams standing up. By the time I left, there were people hired and more meaningful work done than we could ever have imagined in the early days.

I finally did make it back to NYC and after some much needed down time, I have launched my own freelance design business. My roots are in movement building and social change work, so I’ve been applying my USDS experience in blue sky research, piloting new initiatives and building teams to tech and design initiatives in advocacy, organizing and philanthropy.

These days I spend most of my time in political tech and mutual aid work, and try to leave space to to making art on the side.

USDS was an incredibly formative experience for my career. I came in on unsure footing, rife with imposter syndrome and insecurity about my lack of technical background.

I learned a grad school amount about tech, but also about people and organizations and institutional change. Truthfully, USDS was incredibly challenging professionally and personally, but it’s where I grew up as a designer, a technologist and a leader.