Ad Hoc’s design practice provides human-centered solutions that align stakeholder goals with user needs.

Blocky, the Ad Hoc mascot, building a wireframe.

Design bridges our research, product, and engineering practices by surfacing findings and aligning on proposed solutions. Our designers work with customers to shape and define user-facing products and the systems that support them.

We give our designers the agency to be empowered practitioners ready to jump in at any stage of a project. Every designer on our team has the appropriate skills required to contribute to products wherever they might be in their lifecycle.

UX principles

Our research and design practices align to create user-driven government services that take into account the diversity of the American people and the complexity of government.

01
We collaborate with and listen to users, government stakeholders, and agency partners.
02
We design in the open and are transparent about our process.
03
We design for all people and abilities.
04
We create straightforward systems, and we respect users’ time.
05
We design for the long haul.
06
We raise expectations for government digital services.

Read more about our guiding principles

Design team skills

  • Visual design
  • Interaction design
  • User experience design
  • Data visualization
  • Frontend development
  • Content
  • Information architecture
  • User research
  • Facilitation
  • Mentorship

Our Design team

We’re hiring

We're looking for technologists with a wide range of skills and experiences to join our team. Find your place today.

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Recent Design posts

Bringing service design to the VA digital services platform

March 16, 2022

To meet the needs of internal customers, Ad Hoc’s platform service design team takes a service design approach to continuously gather feedback and use that information to improve user interactions and experiences with the VSP program.

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Developing a focus style for a themable design system

February 08, 2022

On a recent project, we had a set of focus styles built into a design system that were inconsistent and ineffective, leading to a not-so-great end user experience.

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Ad Hoc joins team on USDA Forest Service BPA to support modernization

December 02, 2021

Ad Hoc will be responsible for providing human-centered design (HCD) and research capabilities to this partnership. HCD and research are both areas of expertise for Ad Hoc.

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The right benchmarks

November 30, 2021

While government websites don’t need to match or outpace commercial websites on design novelty or retention metrics, they should aim to outperform on ensuring users accomplish their goals easily and efficiently.

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Improving government services, by design

October 13, 2021

We know that in order to build effective software, we need to understand the service’s current process. That’s where we turn to service design tools and methodologies.

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Lorem nope-sum: The benefits of using realistic content in UX research

February 23, 2021

Placeholder content can trip up users and give you poorer results. When testing new designs with users, realistic content is key to convey the purpose and use of your designs

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