Usability Testing

5 things we learned from our scams wizard usability test

USAGov’s usability (UX) team developed a step-by-step process for visitors to easily report a scam. Here are 5 things the team learned from performing usability testing on the tool. — via USA.gov

Oct 04, 2023

Modernizing a federal government website with user-centered design

In this blog post, we break down our process for redesigning a federal government website (onrr.gov) into six detailed sections. This blog serves as a helpful guide for other agencies looking to do a major website redesign. — via Office of Natural Resources Revenue

Mar 30, 2023

Testing Beta for Accessibility

The USAGov team strives to ensure all our websites are accessible to as many people as possible. This includes those who need the use of specialized assistive technologies when browsing the internet. In building beta.USA.gov we deliberately validated that it met Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 compliance requirements. Our testing approach includes a three step hybrid method that may be suitable for other agency use. — via USA.gov

Mar 16, 2023

5 Changes the UX Team Made for Beta

The USAGov UX team has made improvements to beta.usa.gov in new ways. See the five changes that help us understand user needs and pain points. — via USA.gov

Mar 14, 2023

Accessibility Testing for onrr.gov

How do you make sure a website is accessible? This blog post outlines the four steps the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR - pronounced like "honor") at the U.S. Department of the Interior took to verify accessibility. — via Office of Natural Resources Revenue

Nov 21, 2022

Join us for an overview of usability test reports on the next version of USA.gov.

Hosted by Digital.gov and the User Experience Community of Practice and Multilingual Community of Practice

Joanne McGovern

Jean Fox

Join us for an overview of the Department of Homeland Security’s new Usability Testing Kit, including its four approaches to usability testing.

Hosted by Digital.gov and the Web Managers Community of Practice and User Experience (UX) Community of Practice

Dana Chisnell

DHS Usability Testing Kit

Usability testing is a way to learn how easy or difficult it is for people to use something by observing them actually using it. The resources provided in this kit can help you systematize the process, produce reliable findings, and generally expand your ability to test service materials (i.e., paper and digital forms, mobile applications, web pages, etc.) thoroughly with real users — before you launch them out into the world.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Jun 13, 2022

User Experience

A User-Centered Approach: Simplicity and Complexity in a Homepage Graphic

A User-Centered Approach: Simplicity and Complexity in a Homepage Graphic—UX interns go through the redesign and testing process of a homepage graphic to communicate the scope the site.

Aug 12, 2021

Usability testing isn’t only for websites. Come work with Dr. Ginny Redish and try out three techniques for quick and easy ways to test the usability of your documents.

Watch Video

Hosted by Digital.gov and the Plain Language Community of Practice

Ginny Redish

Katherine Spivey

A remote event covering user experience (UX) methods, service design, and managing UX in the government.

Hosted by Digital.gov and the UX Community of Practice

Andrew Do

Angela Y. Smithers

Anthony J Schulzetenberg

Brooke Dine

Caroline Kyungae Smith

Katherine B Nammacher

Margo Kabel

Maya Rhodan

Sarah Rigdon

An introduction to usability testing, why it’s important, and how to talk about things that aren’t required to do a usability test. — via 18F

Dec 10, 2018

Join us for a 90-minute demonstration and talk with Steve Krug, where he will share how you can get started making usability fixes, no matter what your full-time job is.

Watch Video

Hosted by Digital.gov and the User Experience Community of Practice

Steve Krug

Redesigning an Intranet Site: Final Stages, Launch, and Lessons Learned

Helpful lessons from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) on the redesign of an intranet.

Karla Blaine

Mar 07, 2018

Finding Usability Testers: Tips from an Army Recruiter

An Army recruiter shares how her training in the Army has helped in her approach to usability testing, and gives a peek inside how usability testing works for USAJOBS.gov at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Meghan Lazier

Sep 28, 2017

How Do You Redesign a ‘Dinosaur’? Redesigning an Intranet Site: the Beginning Stages

Many content managers in the digital world understand the irrepressible desire to improve, fix, edit, add, and move things around. Indeed, it’s our job to nurture this ongoing process to create, update, test, update again. And, repeat! But, what about those sites or pages that seem to never crawl up to the ‘high-priority’ list and

Karla Blaine

Sep 19, 2016

Creative Usability Test Methods—or My Brief Career as a Robot Voice

When you want to do a usability test, sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone and get creative to get the job done. That’s just what happened to us. We’re well practiced at usability testing at USAGov—in person, remote, hallway tests, first-click tests—all of these things we manage without blinking an eye.

Joanne McGovern

Aug 31, 2016

The User-Centered Redesign of IdentityTheft.gov

I first came across the redesigned IdentityTheft.gov on Reddit, of all places. Someone had posted a link to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) newly redesigned site and wrote: I hope this never happens to any of you as the entire thing can be really stressful. The identitytheft.gov website is a true breath of fresh air…You

Melody Kramer

Jun 01, 2016

Kids.Gov Reenvisioned

At USAGov, we always put our customers first. In the wake of our rebranding efforts, our desire to create a positive user experience across the organization has pushed us to turn a scrutinous eye toward Kids.gov — a site focused on providing information and resources to parents, teachers, and kids. In a cross-organizational effort, individuals

Megan Fella

May 23, 2016