Government Software Doesn’t Have to Feel like Government Software

Let's just say it out loud - government is infamous for it's dated software.

What would government software feel like it was actually made for the people using it? What if it were clear, even warm? What if it was the kind of thing you might open because you wanted to and not because you had to?

As we know, this is not usually how public technology goes. More often it is built for an idea of who people should be rather than who they are. Requirements are decided up front, changes come late, and the result tends to feel like government software: dutiful, generic, a little joyless.

Co-Designing > Speccing

When GameTheory set out to make software with Vermont WIC, Tufts, and the Agency of Human Services, we believed that we could collectively do it better, and in doing so, name a model of building for government designed for this century.

Together we started building Daily Drop, an app to help families that Vermont WIC serves learn to feed newborns. We know that Breastfeeding / Chestfeeding information is hard to access for Vermonter's far from WIC offices, and that using an app could cover those same bases.

Rather than starting with requirements, we did something groundbreaking for government. The state of Vermont greenlit a process for building a human-centered app, rather than a plan. We agreed together that we would build this tool in phases, and that every version would in front of the people who would actually use it: WIC staff, the state’s IT team, and parents themselves. That feedback, rather than preliminary requirement planning, would set the direction.

Key decisions like "should it be a website or a phone app? What should it look like? How much material will it cover?" were all defined after the contract was signed.

This meant the design stayed open to change, so the app could keep improving as people used it. It centered the people who stood to benefit, so their needs set the priorities instead of a spec written in advance. By the end, the people it was built for had shaped nearly every part of it through the co-design process we built. And it led with fun, because Daily Drop is a game, and the playful learning is the point, not just an add-on.

A Better Method

VT WIC took a leap of faith and innovation by committing to a human centered development process, rather than a traditional government approach. The results speak for themselves.

The app, Daily Drop, looks more like chart-topping favorites like Duolingo, than classic government software. Inside and out, the design leaves room for the many ways families feed, learn, and grow their confidence. Not only does it look gorgeous, but it works better. Families found it easy to use, and said it left them more confident about feeding their babies.

Because of these best in-class results, Tufts worked with us to co-publish a study on how Daily Drop was made for other government entities to reference. It covers the full process from first concept through testing, has been peer reviewed, and published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. We are so excited for the doors this could open for the future of government technologies. This approach is a clear winner over other government development approaches, and could be implemented relatively easily in the future on other projects like this.