Forms play an important role in our lives. When we apply for healthcare, financial services, school, legal assistance, jobs, and many other high-stakes services, we have to fill out cumbersome forms along the way. Similar to these industries, many traditional government forms were designed to meet the needs of bureaucracy, not everyday users. As a result, employees don’t have the information they need to help the people they’re serving. In addition, users feel frustrated by and alienated from services intended to help.

In this half-day workshop, 18F designers will break down the process of improving forms through case studies from our work with state and federal government. We’ll do hands-on activities using real-world government forms, share tips and tricks to make forms more human-centered, discuss front and back of house processes, and share tools to help teams working on high-stakes forms to improve their work.