18F Blog

We recently sat down with Developer Kaitlin Devine and asked her a few questions about Discovery, a new product designed to make government procurement more efficient.

18F is glad to announce the beta release of a new procurement tool, Discovery. Discovery will allow federal acquisition personnel to conduct initial market research more easily and quickly - allowing users to discover and research vendors offering work across a number of professional service categories.

At 18F we hire people from many different backgrounds and each new employee brings a different level of comfort with the specific tools we use on our various projects. The team that runs the 18F website recently started writing down the tools and processes that we use to update the blog and the code that runs the site. We're sharing that with you today.

When the Employment and Training Administration’s CareerOneStop team set out to redesign the career, training, and job resources sections of the CareerOneStop site, they didn’t immediately begin rewriting code. Instead, they embraced a user-centered approach that focused on the user experience (UX). Read on to learn more about their findings.

In February, consultant and author Steve Portigal left behind the California sunshine to speak at the 18F headquarters. Steve — principal at Portigal Consulting, author, podcaster, and ramen aficionado — expounded on the topic of bad ideas: Namely, how they add value to the creative process and why we should seek them out.