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Airbnb billionaire co-founder Joe Gebbia is growing his team at the U.S. National Design Studio, the Trump initiative focused on improving the government\u2019s online presence. On Monday, Gebbia announced that American designer Peter Arnell joined the team to become the first U.S. Chief Brand Architect.<\/p>\n
Gebbia shared the news of Arnell\u2019s hire, during the The Wall Street Journal\u2019s \u201cFuture of Everything\u201d conference on Monday. Arnell will be joining a group of people that includes Silicon Valley design and software engineering talent, who are singularly focused on reshaping the usability of the U.S. government\u2019s online platforms.<\/p>\n
In his four-decade career as a brander and marketer, Arnell has worked with major brands like Donna Karan New York, Samsung, Unilever, Pepsi, Reebok, Chrysler, The Home Depot, and others. Now, his focus will be to rebrand this digital slice of the United States of America, which he calls \u201cthe greatest brand in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very special and different perspective on the word \u2018brand\u2019 in the sense that we\u2019re not rebranding this country, of course,\u201d Arnell explained at the WSJ event. \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is, very specifically, have a consistency, [a] unified look-and-feel and experience, so that we start to build trust in the way that the American citizen daily interacts with the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the move presents an \u201cinteresting challenge\u201d ahead, as the team is tasked with redesigning 27,000 government websites. To do so, the team relies on many of the same design sensibilities that they previously used to build best-in-class consumer apps, like Airbnb. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s a spirit of Airbnb here,\u201d Gebbia pointed out, saying that much like bringing the complicated process of finding a room to rent or an online vacation rental, the government work is also about taking a complex process and making it easier, safer, and trustworthy. <\/p>\n
He also mentioned some of the work the team has already completed to improve the design and the functionality of the government\u2019s online operations and websites so far. For instance, the team revamped the government\u2019s retirement process, which had been complex and paper-based, to a streamlined web-based version that employees can complete within minutes, in some cases, instead of months. Another process being prototyped has brought a common government workflow down from 87 clicks to 12, and the plan is to get it to 10, he said.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> The design initiative will also work to address other frustrations of using government websites, like getting lost navigating sites or pages timing out, causing users to lose their data.<\/p>\n Gebbia slyly referred to the poor consumer experience of using government sites as \u201cone of the darkest UX patterns that you could think of\u201d \u2014 a reference to the deceptive design or user interface tricks sites use to manipulate their users. <\/p>\n \u201cJust the perception of [a government website] being hard precludes you from even engaging in it,\u201d he suggested. \u201cI think we\u2019re moving beyond this\u2026this is over. People should feel empowered to get the thing done with the government that they need to get done,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n