By Kashmira Konduparty
Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, announced that designer Peter Arnell has been appointed as the first U.S. Chief Brand Architect for the U.S. National Design Studio. The goal of the National Design Studio is to improve how Americans interact with government services online.
Arnell has worked with many successful brands like Samsung, Disney, Reebok, PepsiCo, McDonald’s and many others. And now he will focus on rebranding the government websites and make them user friendly.
“What we are trying to do is, very specifically, have a consistency, 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” he said at The Wall Street Journal’s “Future of Everything” conference.
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The National Design Studio initiative involves redesigning around 27,000 government websites to fix issues of confusing navigations, slow systems and poor usability. The goal is to make online services of the government simpler, faster and more accessible to the citizens.
Gebbia says that the project applies Airbnb-style design thinking, mainly focusing on simplifying complex systems and making processes user-friendly and intuitive. He mentioned that team has already worked on the design and functioning of the government’s retirement process, which reduced it from taking months to minutes. Some of the workflow has been cut from 87 clicks to now 12 clicks, which Gebbia and team further aim to bring down to 10 clicks.
The initiative reflects a wider push to modernize U.S. government digital services, long criticized for outdated systems and difficult navigation. By bringing in private-sector design expertise, officials aim to address inefficiencies in government platforms and improve accessibility for millions of users.
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The effort highlights a growing recognition that design and user experience play a critical role in how citizens engage with government services.
If successful, the project could significantly reshape how Americans interact with government agencies on a daily basis, making services faster, simpler and more intuitive. However, its impact will depend on how effectively the changes are implemented across thousands of platforms and adopted by federal agencies.
The move signals a broader shift toward user-centered governance, where functionality and accessibility are prioritized alongside policy.