Trump’s plan to redesign every .gov website leads to AI-designed horrors

特朗普重塑所有 .gov 网站的计划引发了 AI 设计的“灾难”

President Donald Trump’s plan to “fill the digital potholes” and use AI to quickly redesign every government website isn’t going very well. Last August, Trump created the National Design Studio, or NDS, by executive order. A temporary DOGE-like entity that answers only to the president, NDS was tasked with creating new standards to update the US Web Design System (USWDS) and overhaul 27,000 dot-gov websites in just three years.

唐纳德·特朗普总统旨在“填补数字坑洼”并利用人工智能快速重塑所有政府网站的计划进展并不顺利。去年八月，特朗普通过行政命令成立了国家设计工作室（NDS）。作为一个仅对总统负责、类似于政府效率部（DOGE）的临时机构，NDS 的任务是制定新标准以更新美国网络设计系统（USWDS），并在短短三年内彻底改造 27,000 个 .gov 网站。

At the end of this so-called “America by Design” initiative, the government’s “design language” would supposedly be more usable and beautiful, Trump expected. However, that monumental task—assigned to a small team under a short timeframe—was seemingly made harder by DOGE’s deep cuts to agencies previously responsible for improving government websites, including dismantling the 18F technology unit and restructuring the US Digital Service into DOGE.

特朗普期望在这一所谓的“美国设计”倡议结束时，政府的“设计语言”能够变得更加实用且美观。然而，这项分配给一个小团队且时间紧迫的艰巨任务，似乎因 DOGE 对此前负责改进政府网站的机构进行的大幅削减而变得更加困难，这些举措包括解散 18F 技术部门，并将美国数字服务局（US Digital Service）重组并入 DOGE。

Those teams knew exactly how hard it can be to get every government agency to adopt new web standards. They had spent years trying to push agencies to update their sites to comply with USWDS standards, yet “only 30 percent of government websites used them as of mid-2023,” NextGov reported. Notably, the USWDS team—which was created in 2015 to ensure government websites were accessible and mobile-friendly—was reduced to one full-time employee after Trump took office.

这些团队非常清楚，要让所有政府机构采用新的网络标准有多么困难。据 NextGov 报道，他们曾花费数年时间推动各机构更新网站以符合 USWDS 标准，但“截至 2023 年年中，仅有 30% 的政府网站使用了这些标准”。值得注意的是，旨在确保政府网站具备无障碍访问和移动端友好性的 USWDS 团队（成立于 2015 年），在特朗普上任后被缩减至仅剩一名全职员工。

Most people agree that updating government websites is a worthwhile and necessary endeavor. But about a year into NDS’s existence, the team hasn’t accomplished much. Its biggest achievement has been modernizing the federal retirement system. However, former government workers have accused the Trump administration of claiming “false victories and overstated credit,” noting that the project was underway before NDS was created.

大多数人都认同更新政府网站是一项有价值且必要的工作。但在 NDS 成立约一年后，该团队并没有取得多少成就。其最大的成就是实现了联邦退休系统的现代化。然而，前政府工作人员指责特朗普政府宣称“虚假胜利并夸大功劳”，并指出该项目在 NDS 成立之前就已经在进行了。

The group’s other output has been meager, with few launches and substantial backlash from design experts, who argue that the team relies too heavily on AI and has failed to test sites for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. As scrutiny of NDS has intensified, most agencies are now resisting connecting with the team about adopting new web standards, Ars has learned.

该团队的其他产出寥寥无几，发布的产品很少，且遭到了设计专家的强烈抵制。专家们认为该团队过度依赖人工智能，且未能对网站进行《美国残疾人法案》（ADA）的合规性测试。据 Ars 了解，随着对 NDS 的审查力度加大，大多数机构目前都在抵制与该团队就采用新网络标准进行对接。

Single-page launches, odd redirects

单页发布与奇怪的重定向

Ars conducted a comprehensive review of launched sites to assess NDS’s progress so far. Most of the few dozen websites NDS has launched consist of a single page, where visitors can do little more than fill out a sign-up form. The most useful offering may be TrumpRX, which includes a search tool for comparing drug prices. For anything else, visitors must visit a legacy site.

Ars 对已发布的网站进行了全面审查，以评估 NDS 目前的进展。NDS 发布的几十个网站中，大多数仅由一个页面组成，访问者除了填写注册表单外几乎做不了什么。最有用的产品可能是 TrumpRX，它包含一个用于比较药品价格的搜索工具。对于其他任何需求，访问者都必须访问旧版网站。

There are also many newly registered domains—like live.gov, onlyfarms.gov, aliens.gov, and why.gov—which currently redirect to legacy sites. Some of those old sites may be updated with NDS’s signature flair, but the ones that don’t look as pretty remain the primary resource for Americans seeking government information or assistance online. At least one website, 250.gov, which celebrates 250 years of US history, curiously redirects to a dot-org rather than a dot-gov, which is unusual for a government site and could erode visitor trust.

此外还有许多新注册的域名——如 live.gov、onlyfarms.gov、aliens.gov 和 why.gov——目前都重定向到了旧版网站。其中一些旧网站可能会被更新并带有 NDS 的标志性风格，但那些看起来不那么美观的网站仍然是美国人在线获取政府信息或援助的主要资源。至少有一个网站 250.gov（旨在庆祝美国建国 250 周年）奇怪地重定向到了一个 .org 域名而非 .gov 域名，这对于政府网站来说很不寻常，可能会削弱访问者的信任。

Among the few larger sites that NDS has launched is its own, ndstudio.gov. Currently, that site catalogs the team’s launches, shares a brief timeline of US design achievements, discusses the team’s AI and accessibility efforts, and encourages talented designers to “apply now.” It also 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, NextGov reported.

在 NDS 发布的少数大型网站中，包括其官网 ndstudio.gov。目前，该网站列出了团队的发布成果，分享了美国设计成就的简要时间线，讨论了团队在人工智能和无障碍方面的努力，并鼓励有才华的设计师“立即申请”。据 NextGov 报道，该网站还曾短暂开设过一家商店，销售 47 美元的限量版 MAHA 海报，以及带有卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪签名的 400 美元“收藏版”海报。

The store disappeared after the White House faced questions about where the profits from sales would go. A White House spokesperson told NextGov that the posters were never “actually for sale,” as the store’s items did not include a “purchase button.” The only other site of similar scope is merrychristmas.gov, which, beyond the homepage, includes one page for each of the 12 days of Christmas. An apparent vanity project rather than a government resource, the site is also a celebration of NDS designs and culminates on Christmas with a page praising the group for building sites reflecting “a belief that thoughtful design can strengthen democracy and improve civic life.”

在白宫面临关于销售利润去向的质询后，该商店消失了。白宫发言人告诉 NextGov，这些海报从未“真正出售”，因为商店的商品没有包含“购买按钮”。另一个规模类似的网站是 merrychristmas.gov，除了主页外，它还为圣诞节的 12 天中的每一天都包含一个页面。该网站显然是一个虚荣项目而非政府资源，它也是对 NDS 设计的庆祝，并在圣诞节当天达到高潮，页面上赞扬该团队构建的网站反映了“深思熟虑的设计可以加强民主并改善公民生活”的信念。

These sites are supposed to “delight” Americans, Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb cofounder serving as Trump’s chief design officer, told NextGov in February. The next month, he told Fox News he wanted visiting government websites to feel like “an Apple Store-like experience.” However, the rush to launch sites that look as slick as iPhone ads has not always gone smoothly.

Airbnb 联合创始人、现任特朗普首席设计官的乔·格比亚（Joe Gebbia）在二月份告诉 NextGov，这些网站旨在“取悦”美国人。次月，他告诉福克斯新闻，他希望访问政府网站的感觉就像“苹果商店般的体验”。然而，急于推出看起来像 iPhone 广告一样精美的网站并不总是顺利。

On TrumpRX.gov, for example, NDS was mocked for using AI to generate an image that “showed a child with six toes running towards an American flag without any stars on it,” NextGov reported. (That seemingly contradicts a directive from former President Joe Biden that agencies should never update websites to “alarm or frighten your users in ways that erode trust.”)

例如，据 NextGov 报道，TrumpRX.gov 因使用人工智能生成了一张“显示一个长着六个脚趾的孩子跑向一面没有星星的美国国旗”的图片而遭到嘲笑。（这似乎与前总统乔·拜登的一项指令相矛盾，该指令要求各机构绝不能以“令用户惊恐或以削弱信任的方式”更新网站。）

A design for CIO.gov was abruptly pulled after critics on LinkedIn panned it as inaccessible and discovered that NDS had seemingly exposed its design system by accident. On X, an NDS staffer boasted that it was “one of our first deployment[s] that is almost entirely generated by our internal AI agent system” end to end. But commenters pointed to odd coding choices, such as “inconsistent” color labels, as evidence of a rushed rollout, with one LinkedIn user writing, “it’s as if they used an AI with a hangover to generate it!” Another commenter lamented, “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.” Currently, that page redirects to councils.gov, but the Wayback Machine still has an archived screenshot of the yanked page as of this.

CIO.gov 的一个设计在 LinkedIn 上的批评者抨击其无法访问，并发现 NDS 似乎意外泄露了其设计系统后被突然撤下。在 X 平台上，一名 NDS 工作人员吹嘘这是“我们首批几乎完全由内部 AI 代理系统端到端生成的部署之一”。但评论者指出了一些奇怪的编码选择，例如“不一致”的颜色标签，作为仓促推出的证据。一位 LinkedIn 用户写道：“这看起来就像他们用一个宿醉的 AI 生成的！”另一位评论者感叹道：“这显然是一个供 AI 代理复制外观的设计系统，而不是供人类实施或理解的设计系统。但其实不必如此。”目前，该页面已重定向至 councils.gov，但 Wayback Machine 仍保留了该被撤下页面的存档截图。