Joe Gebbia — a co-founder of Airbnb who was named by President Trump this week to be the first U.S. chief design officer — tells Axios he wants to update federal websites to an “Apple Store-like experience.”
“That means it’s beautifully designed,” Gebbia told us, “has great user experience, and it runs on modern software” — three strikes when it comes to dealing with today’s government.
Airbnb — which over 17 years has become a ubiquitous verb for what used to be a classified-ad section at the back of the newspaper — applied those same three principles to renting a vacation home. “There’s no reason why the government can’t have that, too,” Gebbia said.
And Trump is making it a legacy project.
Gebbia points out that mobile apps and websites are the “front door to the government” for most Americans. It’s “an injustice that our interfaces are horribly out of date,” he said. “There’s no reason why our government can’t be a standard for great design.”
