Airbnb Co-Founder Leads US National Design Studio

Trump administration taps Joe Gebbia to redesign federal websites

The White House has named Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia as the U.S. chief design officer to lead a newly created National Design Studio. The studio is part of the America by Design initiative, an executive order that aims to modernize how people interact with government online.

Gebbia says his team will rework government services "to be as satisfying to use as the Apple store: beautifully designed, great user experience, run on modern software." He invited designers and technologists to apply through the new studio website, which currently gathers emails for updates.

Gebbia brings a mix of product and physical design experience — Airbnb, Neighborhood furniture, and Samara housing projects — along with board roles and high-profile tech ties. But redesigning federal sites will require more than good aesthetics.

Why this matters

Many government websites struggle with dense legal language, slow performance, poor mobile rendering and accessibility gaps. Users often need step-by-step tutorials just to find basic services, which undermines trust and raises support costs.

Experts say these are solvable problems but recommend focusing on high-impact pages first. Examples include:

• IRS.gov and tax filing flows
• NIH.gov and public health guidance pages
• Benefits and licensing portals that affect millions of transactions

Because of approval pipelines and security reviews, visible change could take time; industry estimates suggest two years before broad improvements appear. That timeline argues for focused pilots that demonstrate measurable gains fast.

Design without breaking security

Industry voices warn against treating visual polish as separate from security and accessibility. Large-scale theme replacements risk breaking integrations and compliance. A safer playbook pairs every customer-experience change with a security test case and uses theme-by-theme modernization.

A pragmatic approach looks like this:

1. Audit current sites for the top citizen journeys, accessibility failures, and security gaps.
2. Pilot modern, mobile-first themes on a limited set of pages while running automated security and accessibility tests.
3. Measure impact with KPIs like task completion rates, support call reductions, load time and WCAG compliance.
4. Scale theme-by-theme and service-by-service rather than ripping out entire platforms at once.

That blend of rapid, measurable pilots and security-first validation is how Gebbia's studio can move beyond visuals to lasting improvements in accessibility, trust and efficiency.

What QuarkyByte would focus on

We'd start with data: a prioritized inventory of pages, user testing on the most common tasks, automated accessibility and security scans, and a two- to four-sprint pilot to prove impact. Small, measured wins change perception and cut operational costs faster than one-off redesigns.

The appointment is a chance to rethink how Americans interact with government. If Gebbia's team pairs world-class user experience with rigorous security and incremental rollout plans, the result could be faster, clearer and more accessible government services.