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Government systems continue to demonstrate poor usability and to provide the public and their own employees with a less-than-satisfying user experience. This situation persists mainly because government agencies fail to specify usability in a way that ensures the production of adequately usable systems, or are not prepared to ensure usability and good user experience for themselves. This chapter looks at how governments initiate system development projects and contracts, explores how they prepare requests for proposals (RFPs), and proposes some approaches to solving the problem. To illustrate these concepts, the authors draw on their experience in Finland (as an example of a European country) and in the United States.