White House launches Life Experience projects to streamline citizen service delivery

The US Government has announced a series of new projects that will streamline service delivery at the most critical moments in people’s lives.

The Office for Management and Budget (OMB) has revealed nine Life Experience projects based on common, critical life events that often require interactions with multiple Federal agencies and levels of government. These include having a child and early childhood for low-income families, facing a financial shock, recovering from a disaster, navigating transition to civilian life, approaching retirement and transitioning to adulthood.

“Too often, people have to navigate a tangled web of government websites, offices, and phone numbers to access the services they depend on. Government needs to better meet people where they are and be responsive to how they navigate these moments,” the OMB said in a statement.

The administration engaged in extensive research to learn how people typically interact with government, which involved connecting with 36 government agencies and talking to more than 500 people across 34 states and territories.

Among the nine new projects is a plan to improve Federal data services for benefits delivery. The project seeks to improve access to benefits for people facing financial shock by improving underlying data systems and verification services. 

Other projects include:

• Building a trauma-informed care approach and calculating a more holistic burden estimate after a disaster

• Piloting a benefits bundle approach for families navigating supports, a new born supplies kit and text message notifications for critical updates.

•  Prototyping integrated transition planning to support transitioning service members. 

• Increasing access to decision-making support for older adults seeking information on retirement.  

The projects are part of the administration’s ongoing efforts to improve customer experience - driven by human-centred design research - launched with the Executive Order on Customer Experience in late 2021 to access government services and websites.

Since then, more than 17 Federal agencies have taken steps to create customer experiences that are more seamless, including releasing a VA Health and Benefits mobile app - which has over 1 million downloads - and launching a redesign of SSA.gov.