President Donald Trump’s effort to remake government websites through the National Design Studio, or NDS, is running into a problem bigger than visual polish. The project was created to update federal web standards and overhaul 27,000 dot-gov websites in just three years, but its first year has produced limited launches, design backlash, accessibility concerns, and questions about how sensitive public services should be handled online.
A sweeping web redesign with a small runway
Trump created NDS last August by executive order as part of the “America by Design” initiative. The goal was to create new standards for the US Web Design System, known as USWDS, and make the government’s digital design language more usable and beautiful.
The ambition is large. Government websites are where people look for benefits, health information, forms, policy details, identity services, and basic public guidance. Making those sites clearer and more consistent is a reasonable objective, but the source article shows how difficult that work becomes when it is compressed into a short timetable and tied to a small team.
NDS was also formed after DOGE’s deep cuts to teams that had already worked on government technology. The source says those changes included dismantling the 18F technology unit and restructuring the US Digital Service into DOGE. Those earlier teams had experience with the slow process of getting agencies to adopt common web standards.
That history matters because adoption was already uneven. NextGov reported that “only 30 percent of government websites used them as of mid-2023,” referring to USWDS standards. The USWDS team, created in 2015 to make federal websites accessible and mobile-friendly, was reduced to one full-time employee after Trump took office.
Early launches are mostly narrow pages
According to Ars Technica’s review, NDS has launched only a few dozen sites so far, and most are single-page experiences where visitors can do little beyond filling out a sign-up form. That is a limited output for an initiative meant to reshape thousands of government websites.
The most useful example identified in the source is TrumpRX, which includes a search tool for comparing drug prices. For other needs, visitors are directed back to legacy sites. That means the redesigned pages may look newer, but the older sites often remain the place where people actually have to go for information or assistance.
Several newly registered domains also redirect to existing government resources. The source lists live.gov, onlyfarms.gov, aliens.gov, and why.gov as examples. At least one site, 250.gov, redirects to a dot-org rather than a dot-gov, which the source describes as unusual for a government site and potentially damaging to visitor trust.
NDS’s own site, ndstudio.gov, is one of the larger launches. It catalogs the studio’s work, outlines a short timeline of US design achievements, describes its AI and accessibility efforts, and invites designers to “apply now.” Another broader site, merrychristmas.gov, includes a homepage and one page for each of the 12 days of Christmas.
The source also notes that ndstudio.gov briefly hosted a store marketing a $47 limited edition MAHA poster and a $400 “collector’s edition” with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s autograph. The store disappeared after questions were raised about where profits would go. A White House spokesperson told NextGov the posters were never “actually for sale,” because the items did not include a “purchase button.”
AI design has created visible problems
Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb cofounder serving as Trump’s chief design officer, told NextGov in February that the sites were supposed to “delight” Americans. The following month, he told Fox News that he wanted government websites to feel like “an Apple Store-like experience.”
That consumer-product framing helps explain the studio’s emphasis on sleek presentation. But the source shows that speed and style have sometimes collided with basic execution.
On TrumpRX.gov, NDS was mocked for using an AI-generated image that NextGov reported “showed a child with six toes running towards an American flag without any stars on it.” On CIO.gov, a design was pulled after critics on LinkedIn described it as inaccessible and found that NDS had seemingly exposed its design system by accident.
An NDS staffer wrote on X that the CIO.gov work was “one of our first deployment[s] that is almost entirely generated by our internal AI agent system” end to end. Critics then pointed to strange coding choices, including “inconsistent” color labels. One LinkedIn user wrote, “it’s as if they used an AI with a hangover to generate it!” Another said, “this is clearly a design system for AI agents to replicate the look of vs. for humans to implement or understand. It doesn’t have to be this way though.”
These details are not merely aesthetic. For a government website, design is part of service delivery. If pages are inaccessible, confusing, oddly redirected, or filled with AI artifacts, users may doubt whether the service is official, reliable, or safe to use.
Accessibility and privacy concerns raise the stakes
Design experts cited in the source argue that NDS relies too heavily on AI and has failed to test sites for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The source also says that as scrutiny has intensified, most agencies are now resisting connecting with NDS about adopting new web standards.
The privacy questions are even more sensitive around unlaunched domains. The Drey Dossier, a YouTube investigative outlet, examined whether the redesign might involve surveillance, propaganda, or improper access to data. It also questioned the status of domains such as vote.gov and passport.gov.
The Guardian later published an investigation corroborating some of those findings, including that NDS had “built versions of services legally assigned to other agencies,” including passport.gov and vote.gov. For vote.gov, the Guardian reported that “under the studio’s design, voters would be required to verify their identity through Login.gov, the federal sign-in gateway, and to have their citizenship checked against a database run by the Department of Homeland Security.”
The source says any plan for data retention policies remains unclear and that there has seemingly been no privacy impact assessment weighing the implications of centralizing sensitive data in the White House. The Guardian also reported that “the commission Congress put in charge of vote.gov has not decided to formally participate in the initiative.”
Why public websites need more than polish
The core lesson from the NDS rollout is that government web design cannot be treated like a fast brand refresh. A public website has to be accessible, understandable, trustworthy, and connected to the right agency process. Visual appeal helps only when the underlying service works.
The source article makes clear that there is broad agreement that government websites need improvement. The dispute is over execution: whether a small, AI-heavy team can redesign a massive federal web ecosystem quickly while preserving accessibility, privacy, agency authority, and public confidence.
So far, the public evidence points to a troubled start. NDS has produced some launches, but many are thin pages, redirects, or projects that have drawn criticism. For a project built around making online government feel more modern, the test will not be whether pages look polished. It will be whether people can use them safely, clearly, and with confidence.