Trump National Design Studio .gov revamp reported to have major usability flaws
A year in, the project is showing major problems with design, usability, and performance.
US President Donald Trump watches the start of Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Samuel Corum/Getty.
- A review of Trump’s National Design Studio .gov overhaul found widespread usability, design, and technical issues across multiple websites. The project aimed to redesign about 27,000 government sites in three years.
- Critics reported problems including poor accessibility, heavy code, inconsistent design, and AI-generated imagery errors. Some sites also failed basic usability and performance standards.
- Several government websites showed inconsistent visual styles and confusing architecture, despite a goal to standardize design. Many pages were simple sign-up forms that redirected users to legacy systems.
- The review raised concerns about privacy and tracking tools, with some sites reportedly bypassing protections. It highlights broader issues about speed over quality in large-scale digital government projects.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
AI-generated imagery errors, accessibility failures, overly heavy pages, poor code, limited functionality, and confusing architecture are just a few examples from a review of how Donald Trump's plans to overhaul 27,000 .gov websites in three years are going.
It all started almost a year ago, when the US President created the National Design Studio (NDS), which was tasked with improving the nation through better design of government websites. The task was somewhat complicated by the same administration's layoffs at agencies responsible for improving government websites.
And now, Ars Technica has taken a closer look at what has happened during that year. Its review showed that TrumpRX.gov reportedly used an AI-generated image showing a child with six toes and an American flag missing its stars.
Meanwhile, some sites were criticized for being too complicated to access and not adequately tested for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, while users with slower connections were also seemingly forgotten.
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What's more, one NDS site was reported to deliver nearly 3MB of code despite being essentially a simple text page. At the same time, other sites proved difficult for humans to understand and implement, as they appeared optimized for AI-generated content rather than for human designers.
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In terms of visual language, despite NDS being tasked with standardizing the design of government websites, it was found that, for example, Moms.gov, NASAForce.gov, EarlyCareers.gov, RealFood.gov, Freedom.gov, TrumpAccounts.gov, and TrumpRX.gov had different fonts, visual styles, interaction patterns, and levels of animation.
On the usability side, some critics point out that NDS's dramatic animations and marketing-style effects prioritize aesthetics over clarity and usability. This might not be surprising, as, according to Ars Technica, the goal was to make government websites feel like an Apple Store experience.
Despite these goals, many launches were single-page websites that consisted mainly of sign-up forms or marketing pages, while users were often redirected to legacy systems for the actual services.
A more worrying finding is that four NDS-built sites reportedly used commercial visitor-tracking software, and these tools were allegedly configured to bypass common privacy protections. Also, proposed centralized services such as Vote.gov redesign concepts raised concerns about identity verification, citizenship checks, and the centralized collection of sensitive citizen information.
As Cybernews has reported on multiple occasions, government databases containing citizens' sensitive personal data are commonly leaked.
Therefore, the review of the NDS achievements showed what the whole internet is suffering from at this stage of AI expansion: quality is often forgotten for the sake of speed.
However, maybe NDS will be luckier with newly registered domains such as aliens.gov and onlyfarms.gov.