Government performance reports aren’t known to be page-turners. What if we could change that?
By law, the Federal government publishes extensive reports detailing strategic goals, plans, and progress—thousands of pages over a single Administration’s term. These documents are meant to inform the public about the priorities U.S. agencies are setting in areas like healthcare and education and the measurable results achieved so far. But they are often so complex that anyone outside government can find them hard to navigate or understand, presenting a real barrier to connecting Americans to their government.
Many of these reports are available on Performance.gov. Our mission is to make them accessible, so that everyone can follow the U.S. government’s goals and progress, and discover opportunities to get involved.
To reimagine this information, we partnered with graphic designer Paula Scher and her team at Pentagram to rethink what’s possible. We asked: Can you help us turn this mountain of words and numbers into something people are excited to explore?
They jumped at the challenge.
Rethinking Government Transparency
Together, we investigated options for transforming long, text-heavy reports into digestible, searchable content that could tell the story of government performance in a more accessible, compelling way.
We crafted a new logo and brand identity for Performance.gov, aiming to position it as a resource for everyone—not just government insiders.
Logos for Performance.gov and the President's Management Agenda, a sub-brand
Next, we tackled the challenge of creating unique visuals for government initiatives targeting a wide array of issues. Using original artwork made for this project, Pentagram trained AI to produce images that connect U.S. strategic goals to public life, while capturing the optimism inherent in fighting for a stronger, more prosperous Nation.
They stand as reminders of the mission—the collective purpose we need to fulfill on behalf of the people.
Outputs from the AI art system. 1,000+ options were created.
Finally, we built a digital prototype to bring all these elements together. It was our sandbox for innovation—a place to test how interactive design could transform how people experience federal performance information.
The prototype focused on presenting government information tailored to the audience. Instead of organizing information solely by agency, it enabled discovery by topic. A simple search generates a list of goals related to your keyword. Each goal receives a concise profile, populated with real data. By putting key takeaways front and center and making comprehensive details in full reports available for those who want to dig deeper, we made it easier to spot what’s important and decide where to dig in.
Screens from the digital prototype
The Road Ahead
We envision a future where more people regularly use government performance information to understand what’s being done about the issues they care about—and how they can participate, should they choose to.
This collaboration produced:
- A brand identity for Performance.gov that helps command attention on national goals.
- An AI art system that can reflect the diversity of America’s challenges and ambitions.
- A digital prototype to build upon that allows users to search U.S. strategic goals by topic and learn about them at a glance.
Challenges remain—including how we adapt to evolving policies around the use of AI. This project charts a way forward, toward a new path for transparent performance reporting. Updating our homepage to connect vivid imagery with some of the goals set out by major U.S. agencies will be a first step along this path.
Updates to homepage
Stay tuned as we work to incorporate more of what we learned into the future of U.S. Performance Reporting.
