On August 22, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that could reshape how Americans interact with their government online and in person. With a flourish and a few well-chosen words about beauty and efficiency, Trump established the National Design Studio—a new White House initiative tasked with overhauling the usability and aesthetics of federal digital services. At the helm of this ambitious project is expected to be Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and a familiar face in the corridors of both Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.
According to Reuters, Trump tapped Gebbia to serve as the nation’s first chief design officer, a position that will report directly to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The appointment is seen as the centerpiece of the new “America by Design” agenda, an effort to deliver what Trump described as “digital and physical experiences that are both beautiful and efficient, improving the quality of life for our Nation.” The studio’s mission? To standardize the look and feel of government websites, reduce duplicative design costs, and, most importantly, make it easier for Americans to access essential services—from tax filings and Social Security applications to Medicare enrollment and immigration processes.
In a White House blog post, Trump explained, “With this order, I am announcing ‘America by Design,’ a national initiative to improve experiences for Americans, starting by breathing new life into the design of sites where people interface with their Government. It is time to update the Government’s design language to be both usable and beautiful.” The National Design Studio, he added, will “advise agencies on how to reduce duplicative design costs, use standardized design to enhance the public’s trust in high-impact service providers, and dramatically improve the quality of experiences offered to the American public.”
The executive order gives the studio a three-year lifespan, with a mandate to deliver its first results by July 4, 2026. By July 4, 2028, the studio is scheduled to disband, having (in theory) completed its work. The initiative replaces the Obama-era 18F digital design office, which was shuttered earlier in 2025, and follows in the footsteps of the now-dismantled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), once led by Elon Musk. DOGE was known for slashing government jobs, shuttering departments, and pushing for modernization—sometimes at a breakneck pace. But after Musk’s departure from the Trump administration, DOGE’s activities slowed, leaving a void the new studio now aims to fill.
Gebbia’s selection is hardly a surprise to those who’ve watched his career. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he co-founded Airbnb in 2008 alongside Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk, quickly transforming the company into a household name. More recently, he’s launched Samara, a startup focused on building backyard homes, and joined the board of Tesla. Since Trump’s election, Gebbia has been a regular in Washington, collaborating with Musk’s DOGE to overhaul federal HR and retirement services. In June, he told Bloomberg that the federal government was a “design desert” and that much of his work centered on streamlining processes and eliminating outdated, paper-based systems.
But what will the National Design Studio actually do? The executive order spells out a sweeping set of priorities. Agencies are required to implement the America by Design agenda by July 4, 2026, with the studio providing direction on cost reduction and design standardization. According to a White House fact sheet, the current “sprawling ecosystem of federal services lacks the usability and aesthetic quality expected by the American public.” That’s not just rhetoric—only 6% of federal websites are rated “good” for mobile use, and 45% aren’t mobile-friendly at all. With over 26,000 federal websites, the scale of the challenge is daunting.
To tackle this, the 24 largest federal agencies are preparing to eliminate more than 330 websites—about 5% of the 7,200 sites they currently maintain—according to Federal News Network. The goal is to consolidate, simplify, and provide a more seamless experience for users. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) offers a model: in 2018, the VA merged several websites into VA.gov, responding to feedback that veterans found it “incredibly confusing” to navigate so many digital “front doors.” Barbara Morton, the VA’s Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer, recalled, “Veterans said, ‘We think VA.gov is where we’d go, if we didn’t know where to go.’”
Lee Becker, former chief of staff of the Veterans Experience Office and now a senior executive at Medallia, sees the executive order as an “additional step” to scale up changes that have already led to higher trust scores at the VA. “This is about turning customer experience feedback into fuel using customer insights, modern tools, and design thinking to ensure every government service works better, faster, and with greater trust,” Becker told Federal News Network.
The Trump administration’s approach is not without controversy. Many experts who worked on customer experience and design projects were fired or left government service under Trump, and the General Services Administration’s 18F tech shop was shuttered in February. Former 18F employees have even filed lawsuits, claiming they were “unlawfully targeted” by DOGE and its then-leader, Musk. The new studio, described by some as a “stripped-down successor” to DOGE, aims to avoid the pitfalls of the past while building on what worked.
The executive order also calls for the chief design officer to recruit “top private-sector designers” to the cause. Gebbia, with his Silicon Valley pedigree and reputation for innovative thinking, is expected to lead that charge. But as of this writing, he has yet to officially accept the position, though all signs point to his imminent appointment.
For Trump, the move is as much about legacy as it is about efficiency. On his first day in office, he issued a memorandum calling for civic architecture that respects “regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces.” The America by Design initiative extends that aesthetic vision to the digital realm, promising a government that not only works better, but looks better, too.
As the National Design Studio gets underway, Americans may soon find their interactions with government—whether online or in person—a little less frustrating and a lot more user-friendly. Whether the effort will succeed where previous reforms have stumbled remains to be seen, but with a high-profile leader and a clear mandate, the stage is set for a digital transformation unlike any before.
