Executive Order 14338 explained · Executive Order · No disposition noted
Improving Our Nation Through Better Design
Signed: 2025-08-21 Published: 2025-08-26 Federal Register document: 2025-16396
Agencies: Executive Office of the President
What Executive Order 14338 says
Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 163 (Tuesday, August 26, 2025) [Federal Register Volume 90, Number 163 (Tuesday, August 26, 2025)] [Presidential Documents] [Pages 41759-41760] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2025-16396] [[Page 41757]] Vol. 90 Tuesday, No. 163 August 26, 2025 Part V The President ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Order 14338--Improving Our Nation Through Better Design Presidential Documents Federal Register / Vol. 90 , No. 163 / Tuesday, August 26, 2025 / Presidential Documents ___________________________________________________________________ Title 3-- The President [[Page 41759]] Executive Order 14338 of August 21, 2025 Improving Our Nation Through Better Design By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and Policy. America has long led the world in innovation, technological advancement, and design. But with a sprawling ecosystem of digital services offered to Americans, the Government has lagged behind in usability and aesthetics. There is a high financial cost to maintaining legacy systems, to say nothing of the cost in time lost by the American public trying to navigate them. It is time to fill the digital potholes across our Nation. With...
Opening of the official text; read it in full in the Federal Register.
Constitution Index
“VFA Constitution grade”
Constitutionally sound
Graded 2026-10-08
SI-generated grade · five published checks · not individually reviewed by a person · methodology
Executive Order 14338 is an internal executive-branch management directive to improve usability of existing federal digital and physical services, coordinated through a temporary advisory studio. It claims no new power over citizens or states, restricts no rights, imposes no mandates, and takes no property.
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✓ Passes · Enumerated powers
The President directs subordinate executive departments and agencies on administration of existing federal services, hiring, and compliance with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. This is execution of laws already enacted and supervision of the executive branch under Article II, Section 1 vesting of executive power and Article II, Section 3 duty to take care that the laws be faith… -
✓ Passes · Bill of Rights
No speech, religion, press, assembly, arms, search, trial, or other First through Tenth Amendment right is restricted. The order directs website and physical-site usability improvements and hiring of designers. It creates no censorship, no surveillance, no seizure, and expressly creates no enforceable legal burden under Section 4(c). Cited: First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Tenth Amendment - none… -
✓ Passes · Individual sovereignty
The order imposes no mandate, prohibition, or condition on what any person may do with their person, property, speech, labor, or belief. It governs only internal federal design standards and recruitment of designers. Citizens remain free to use or not use the improved services, with no penalty or compulsion requiring government justification. -
✓ Passes · Decentralization
Federal public-facing services must be provided by the federal level that Congress authorized. Individuals, counties, and states cannot redesign federal agency websites and federal offices. The National Design Studio is advisory and coordinating within the Executive Office of the President, sunsets as a temporary organization after 3 years, and Section 4 preserves existing agency authority rather … -
✓ Passes · Due process and takings
No person is deprived of life, liberty, or property, no hearing or notice is owed, and no property is taken. No fines, forfeitures, licensing revocations, or physical appropriations occur. Implementation is subject to applicable law and appropriations. Cited: Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause and Takings Clause - not triggered.
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