- Identify yourself. 
- Build with modern best practices. 
- Review your content. 
- Use the proper government domain. 
- Add the USWDS banner component. 
- Identify link rot. 
- Keep communications simple. 
- Write for the web. 
- Properly manage data and records. 
- Understand expectations. 
- Publish open code and data. 
- Work in the open. 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Trust has to be earned every time. Federal websites and digital services can’t assume it. Trust is about understanding and meeting or exceeding expectations, a process that can be established quickly and maintained over continued interactions, but is easily damaged. Be reliable, consistent, and honest. Reduce the impact of failure with solid design and engineering. Be a good steward of your audience’s data, resources, and time.

Earn Trust USWDS

U.S. Web Design System

- Do users understand that this is a government site or service?
- What are the public’s expectations of your product?
- What private or sensitive data do you ask your users to provide?
- What are you doing to keep that data private?
- Does your product utilize redundancy to minimize the effect of server failure or traffic spikes?
- Does your product use continuous integration testing to prevent unintended regressions?
- Can users to edit or undo actions or edit data they’ve added to the system?
- How often do you check that your service works as intended?
- What components are made available to the public as open source?
- How quickly do you respond to bug reports?
- Is your content written in clear, easy-to-follow plain language?
- Do you provide meaningful access to people with limited English proficiency?

Learn Before

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