99 FormFest
We're joined by Amanda Renteria (https://codeforamerica.org/people/amanda-renteria/) CEO of Code for America (https://codeforamerica.org). We dive into a conversation about what's needed to make 'good' government forms and we let you know about a neat event coming up on 9/30/2025 called FormFest(https://formfest.org/). Register for the event here: https://formfest.org/register/ .<br><br>Music Credit: Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol
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Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a show that looks at the way technology, politics, and policy impacts the world around us. The tools we use, the way services are delivered, and how we talk about and set policy all shape our society. We'll gather around and have a chat about these things together and more. Before we get started, I do wanna let you all know that we've started a Discord for the podcast. There will be a link with an invite down in the episode description. Do feel free to go check that out. It's a small community right now, but hoping to grow it. It's a great way to reach out to me and let me know things that you might want us to cover or to just hang out and talk about civic tech.
Amanda, thank you so much for joining us here, again on I know. It's great to see you. I like that we're making this a habit.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a regular thing we're doing. For folks so that maybe haven't seen those past episodes, could you introduce yourself and tell them a bit about what you do? Sure.
Name is Amanda Renteria. I've been the CEO of Code for America for about five and a half years now. And, Code for America partners with government to help them really modernize systems particularly around, benefits. So safety net benefits, making it easier to apply for, tax benefits, making it easier to file your taxes. And we've been doing this now for fifteen years. So we've seen the ebbs and flows of, government systems. We've seen when it's worked, when it hasn't worked. And particularly over the last five and a half years, we've seen this sort of crisis, you know, whether it was COVID or unwinding of COVID and now in this new era of major policy change that is really affecting state governments' systems, how people interact with government. So, I am renewed in this role and where we are right now, because the world has changed since even the last time we talked.
And what would you say is your personal why? The thing that drives you to get out of bed each day and do all those things.
So, I'm a public servant at heart. So it's always been how do I make sure that I am helping people, have better lives. Right? How do I do good for the world? I will say, right now, I have a particular sense of I can see the train coming. I can see the policies that are gonna make it harder for folks to apply for benefits, that are gonna that are gonna really cause a little bit of chaos in state governments or frontline governments where people come in. And so what gets me up every day is how do I, like, beat it so that's a little bit easier, right, for that person so that we can inform people and educate folks before it happens. So it's almost like, right now, I'm feeling like I've been previewing and moving. It's gonna come at some point. And what can I do so that people are ready for it?
And today, we're here to talk a bit about forms,
which I think for for many folks out there in civic tech, it's the it's the kind of topic that can really get your your blood going. It's, like, foundational to a lot of the things we do. Right? It is. I know you say that, but that is the front door. Right? Like, for government, especially in today's online more digital first world that we've been pushing for. It actually isn't a door at social services. It is a an form. It's your first entry into things.
Yeah. Yeah. And and before we, like, really get deep in into the forms thing, again, folks might not have seen our other or heard our other episodes. I guess this is an audio thing. For those folks, can you tell us a bit about Code for America and its work?
Yeah. So what we do is we basically help make it easier to apply for things in government. And so I'll give you an example. If you're applying for food assistance, if you're applying for energy assistance, how can I apply once to government And all of a sudden, I get my benefit reads my benefits that are entitled to me? And, that whole process really, even from the beginning of Code for America, started with a food assistance application. That is our flagship. And what we did is we made that form online, culturally sensitive, in different languages, much quicker and simpler, to basically fill out a form. And I think, when we think about government and the reason why forms are so central is because that is generally what people see when they see government is, I have to apply for something. Right? Whether it's your driver's license, whether it's taxes, it all really centers around a form.
And forms are so central, to the work y'all do there that you've partnered with the Beck Center to get a an event together called Form Fest. That's all about forms. What what is this event, and why is it important?
So, So, man, I think it was, like, three years ago where we're like, I think it'd be really interesting to bring government implementers. Right? People who are on the front lines of receiving those forms, making those forms, why we have forms. If we brought them into the room and we talked about what are the best practices. Right? Or, like, what are the worst forms? Really just kind of digging into this idea, of let's talk about all the realities of how hard forms are, but also the wins about how different states, different countries have actually switched these forms around so they are better front doors for people. And so it's both a recognizing we've come a long way actually in changing forms, and at the same time, there's still more work to do always in forms. And so what we were surprised by is how much people wanna talk about it. Both the the jokes about it a little bit, like, god, we gotta really fix that, and the, hey, here's what we did, And having other people tune in and say, wait a second. We can change our form too. And so, it's had the benefit of not just creating the space of, nerds who love forms and wanna fix it, but also really practical ways of how others have fixed forms and how they can do it in their own state or country.
We've often on on this podcast talked about user experience design and research as a key practice when it comes to building and improving upon services. How does that apply to something like a government service form?
Yeah. Well, it it is the central piece of input. Right? So even when we first started at Code for America and we did food assistance on how people were applying, we actually sat in living rooms. We actually went to the social services center, sat on their shoulder as they were literally filling out the paper form. And we were able to say, what tripped you up about that question? Why did you pause there? Or when we could see when someone got frustrated by it. That is central to how you design a future good form. Right? Because you had someone walk through the experience, and building a technology that can help you fill out a form needs to start from there. And so for us, the user experience is central. It's the first thing. And then you actually go back, and use a research as well, which is, okay. We did now. Instead of those 10 questions, what about these 10 questions? Oh, wait a second. Maybe 10 is too much. Maybe it's not enough. And so, it's not just about that one experience of seems people fill it out, but the iterative approach to working with people who are filling out those forms to get it right.
I I think I'm hearing from you there that, like, the the key thing is, like, making the time for continuous learning for your form or your services. Am I picking that up right? You're picking it up, and it's who you're learning from.
Right? So there are different approaches to government forms, and we actually take, we put we center the client to make sure that it's easy. But we also are thinking about when the caseworker gets it. You know? Is this gonna help them or not to be able to move through that process? And so, that's why forms is a really interesting conversation because it not just affects the person who's filling out the form, but then who gets the form on the other end so they can guide it through their own internal process. So it's it's user research, making sure everyone's involved, but then continuing to go back to make sure we got it right.
As we, talk about that continued learning on on both ends there, another concept that comes to mind, it has been also a topic that we've talked about here is administrative burden, which, for I'll describe for folks in a simplistic way as being the level of difficulty that someone has to go through to complete some sort of service activity. What connection do you see, from your perspective between that concept and kind of the art of designing and building what we'd call a good government form?
Yeah. I appreciate you, describing administrative burden because I honestly see, like, when I'm talking to my family about my work, and I'm like, we're reducing administrative burden. They also all look at me and say, like, I don't know what you're talking about. And yet at the same time, they do. Right? How long did it take you to fill out that form or to go to that application or to talk to someone in government to help you with whatever issue you had? And so, intuitively, people know how long things take. And part of the process of building good forms is what are the goals of what you're doing to make it easier. Right? Are you trying to reduce the time, people need to fill out forms? Are you are you trying to reduce the questions? Are you trying to simplify them so that they're grabbing the the right information in the fewest amount of questions so that it's not so much time? And, by the way, are you getting the information that on the back end for the caseworker is easier for them to understand and process too? And so on the one hand, it seems like I I always appreciate when my family is like, why did they ask me these 10 questions? I could have just done it in two. Two. Right? And you're like, well, it's not just about what you know. It's about how are they gonna process and what the what the caseworkers need to provide in order to get you that driver's license, that passport, that benefit.
It sounds like what I'm hearing from you there and those listing of different concerns
that that different folks in the process might have that really when you're like, hey. I wanna reduce administrative burden. You really have the challenge of, like, well, for what goal? Like, which goals match up to what you're trying to do? Do am I kinda also picking that right? You're absolutely right, Ryan. And what's interesting about that is here comes AI. Right? And the same principle questions need to apply to that as well. Right? Right? Is this the right tool? What is the goal, and is this the right tool? Right? What is the goal? Is this the right question? Centering, that goal is critical whether it's through a form or any other government intervention. What are you trying to solve with this tech tool?
As we talk about some of the things that lead to good forms, as I'll put in kind of my air quotes that people can't see while listening to a podcast, what examples come to mind for situations where an agency has gotten it right in in your time?
Yeah. So, I am lucky. And the reason why I remain optimistic and hopeful is because I do see, government making big strides in trying to make it easier. I'll give you, one of the biggest ways that we have seen across the board. This is a lot of different states. Really proactively saying, what information do we have that we don't need to ask the question anymore? Right? I mean, if we could unlock this idea that when you, that when you apply for everything anything, it has your income already, so it has a sense of what your eligibility is and it could tell you hey, you know, you're eligible for college financial aid or training or training funds that that's the vision for us and the way we're starting to see states get there is some states are able to put in, let's say, your income for taxes so that you don't have to go find your tax forms from last year or the year before, but it has a it already knows this information. In fact, we always talk about, tax forms being the game of gotcha because, generally, the IRS can match up your name, your all the information you provided, and they can tell you what you paid in taxes or what your AGI was from last year. We need to get to a place where that is happening more often, that that is the way of government where they're telling you, here is the things that you are eligible for. It turns it into a proactive government that actually feels like it sees you. And so I'm excited about when we see governments, utilizing information they already have to help you fill out something and or utilizing the information they already have to say, we're social services. They're health services. We can share, and that brings to you, here is your Medicaid or here is your food assistance or, you know, with the education department. Now you're going to, college. Here is your FAFSA form half filled out. We just need to know what college you're going to. Right? That. And it's getting there. We're it's getting there both on the back end of design where you're seeing states start to work a lot more across department in order to serve the customer. And I'm hopeful about the technology that we're also seeing that has the potential to do that, faster and help caseworkers actually manage through their processes as well.
I I think I hear in there that there's there's a lot of just hard work that organizations have to do to accomplish that. That's like interoperability. Right? Like, whether it's within agencies in a state or a local municipality or even across those boundaries, which I imagine is even more coordination work. I mean, is that something that that you're kinda seeing there as well? Yes. Exactly.
The you know, I think there is we all often say that there is no magic tech solution that's gonna fix it all, nor will AI do that. You actually do need systems themselves, the people who lead these departments themselves to be working together because they actually know where those barriers are, whether an application does or doesn't get through and why. And you need input from those people who are actually filling out that form. Right? Why did it work? Why didn't it work? What scared you? What didn't scare you? So I think at the end of the day, technology requires us to work even more closely as humans together and really understand each other. That's when you can have the best form process, right, or the best government. And then I also will say, there are some folks who who believe who come to FormFest and don't believe you shut any forms. That there should just be a way for, government to recognize from the data it has what you need. And they send you a check-in the mail or they send you, hey. Have you applied for this? Here's a link. Go apply for that. So it's really interesting, just the conversations that happen at Formfest and the different interesting ideas, that people are pushing forward about what government could look like in the future.
If we were to also consider the flip side of the the starting question here, what do you think are some common mistakes kinda out there as folks pursue this kind of form building?
The biggest common mistake is that you do it once and it's over. So still living in the paper based form. Right? Like, the form is done. All we're doing is copies. Like, if we wanna make a change, we'll do that next year. The awesome ability to change in real time, and now that people do a lot more digital forms, that awesome ability to do that in real time just immediately drives your outcomes, like, drives the smoothness of people making it through the system because you're able to tackle the barrier immediately. Right? Oh, wrong question. Let's change that question, and let's move forward. And I think, you know, I also think after the first time you redo a form and you or you bring it online, everyone's, like, super excited. You're like, oh my god. This is so much better. Right? And you kinda, like, declare victory. It's just, like, it's a it's a big win that that big moment. But the benefits of those adjustments afterwards, and you can look back a year from that moment, you realize how important those middle steps were, and they're important for understanding in the future as we've worked with forms and changed them over time. There are some just overall lessons about how you approach even the first question in order to be, help clients for an exam as an example, be educational and informative as people are filling it out. So while they're filling it out, you're also building trust from that very first conversation. That's the other piece to this is, really thinking about forms as to you opening the door for somebody and you as a person, human person guiding them through. And if we could think about forms like that, it'll embed that dignity and trust that I think we can all use right now, in this country at least.
AI has come up a couple of times already, kinda scattered throughout our conversation. And it's something that's rather quickly spread throughout the civic tech ecosystem as a set of tools one might use for different problems. What role do you see it ultimately playing? I mean, mean, ultimately is a strong word, but what role do you see it playing with government forms?
Yeah. Well, you know, AI tools have been around for a while, and, governments are have already been using, different tools on the back end. Right? Mostly to say, alright. How do I help caseworkers, you know, upload documents or help how do I help, caseworkers kind of workflow? Right? These this set of applications have this problem. This set of applications have a different problem and be able to, like, bundle those so that you can tackle them in group instead of one by one. So AI so AI tooling will help do that better, faster, maybe even tell you, here are some ideas for this group of, this group of applications that have made the same mistake. Perhaps you should do this. And so I think there's a ton of opportunity on the caseworker side right now. On the AI customer facing side, I think this is where it's important to for government specifically to be careful about how often do you use AI or how are you guiding your AI tool and client facing applications? Because we have seen, when, when taxes I don't remember what company it was. But when they tried to use an AI tool to help people fill out a tax form and they gave them all the wrong information, it went off the rails. That to me is super scary, especially coming from government. You just can't do that because all of a sudden now people are tangled up in a process they thought was helping them through, an AI was helping them through. So we've gotta be super careful about that, but I also think it'll mature. So I'm one of these people that AI is here. How do we make sure we guide it in a way that centers kinda the same principles, right, that centers the people it serves, and how do we keep dignity within that process? So I I think it's here to stay, and we've gotta figure it out.
It it sounds a bit like kind of a there's a like an old Python book that's I think tell us something like automate the boring stuff. Sounds maybe like similar vibes where you're saying like, maybe it's like an AI tool that extracts text off a document for someone that so they can check and submit quickly is good. But maybe not a chatbot that could give them, like like, a bunch of incorrect information if it's not set up well. But on the case manager side, maybe something that kinda helps facilitate the transmission of information, helps them check for errors or anomalies. Am I am I kinda on the right path for the types of You got it. Are you an AI? Oh, maybe.
Having said that, I I will say I will say this. You know, agent agentic AI is really gonna be interesting as that matures. Right? Because you could imagine, actually, each of us having, a government form AI agent that helps us fill out our forms. Right? Hopefully, government makes it easier where you don't need that sort of guidance. But perhaps, in some of the more complicated forms or applications or app or just things that government does, Maybe you do have your own AI agent adviser navigating you through these systems. That that will be possible. One of the things we think about is how do we make it possible for low income clients that we serve? How do we get clients ready for this? Not just government ready for this, but how do you get clients ready to utilize it in the right way as well. And so a ton of opportunities, ton of promise, and we've got to do it in the right way.
So folks listening to our conversation, maybe getting pretty excited about this FormFest event. What are some takeaways that you're hoping that they'll get should they attend?
So I can't help it. But right now, being in community with others, especially as government is changing so much, we have seen over this year how important that is, is just to come together and talk about what's happening, in this space that we all generally love and wanna make better. So that's one. So having a thousand plus or whatever we are now, 1,600 plus folks come together from all around the world to talk about this, for me, anyway, is always a highlight. The second is, really practical practical pieces of what people are doing that could be applied to my city, county, state, country. That we always hear is is something people take away from it. And then, you know, I think in this world right now, when you when you say what you know, often, like, what gives you hope in the world? When I am at Formfest and I hear the things that people are doing, right, it's not making the headlines. It's just people doing the hard work behind the scenes. And maybe nobody ever knows their name that they actually changed this form to make it easier for you. But it's inspiring to me to be able to carve out space to hear those stories and be reminded, you know, of all the quiet voices who really do care about making people's lives better with simple things like making a form easier. So I hope injecting that kind of care right now also means something to a lot of people who are gonna show up for Formfest.
And I imagine folks listening are going like, cool. Like, well, how do I how do I get how do I go? How do I register? That's the So It's the logistics. Yeah. There you go. So we have,
you can still register. So it's still open right now to register. And, now you're gonna it's h t t p S I don't know. What's the what's the entry word? Forumfest.org backslash register backslash. So forumfest.org backslash register. And it closes September 29 at, 12PM or really 11:59PM eastern time. So you got you got a couple of days here. You got two days. Don't procrastinate like my 15 year old does every day, but get in there because, you know, we wanna see you. We want you to be part of this community and, at a time where, I think being in community, being hopeful, and making people's lives easier feels pretty good.
And, don't worry, for the listeners out there that don't have an AI agent listening to these and pulling links out for them. I'll have a link in the in the show notes for y'all to click. And, also worry not, the form event has an easy to fill out form. So I think it nice and easy to get registered.
It would be a shame if it didn't. Right?
Yeah. A little ironic, I would think. Cool. And Amanda, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come on to Civic Tech Chat and share with us about the event. I have no doubt folks will, find it engaging if they manage to get over and register.
Right on. Thanks, Ryan.
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