UI/UX Design

Ask who on that team owns task completion as a metric. On most build teams design is done incidentally by developers between tickets. Offer a bounded design review of one high-volume flow, if it comes back clean, the agency has lost nothing; it rarely comes back clean.

Reframe the ratio: design is typically 8–15% of build labor and it protects the other 85–92%. One post-launch rework cycle on a single flow costs more than the design package that would have prevented it.

USWDS is a component library, not a product design. It supplies the parts; it does not decide the flows, the states, the error handling, or which of its components a task needs. Misassembled USWDS fails users while looking compliant.

Avalon states the adjacent delivery record for what it is, walk the buyer through the actual methodology artifacts, annotation kit, handoff samples, USWDS theming approach, and propose a simplified-acquisition-sized first package that lets the agency verify at low exposure.

End-stage 508 findings are the most expensive kind to fix, and the government's own FY 2025 assessment shows most agencies still test inconsistently and late. Design-stage annotation is how findings are prevented rather than remediated.

Three lawful, standard paths exist: nine or fewer public participants, federal-employee research within official duties, and the A-11 Section 280 fast-track generic clearance where the agency holds one. Research is scoped to fit the path available.