3 Ways to Manage Research Projects Remotely
Being a remote team doesn’t mean you should forgo any of your research rituals. It means finding different ways to do them.
User Experience
User experience involves every interaction a user has with an agency.
More News and Events on User Experience
443 posts
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).
Slack AMA Connect Standards Team with Public
The Standards team hosted their first AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the public in August. Here’s a breakdown of the big topics discussed during the chat.
A Conversation With ITIF About the State of Federal Government Websites
Since it’s been nearly six months since their report was released, we wanted to check in with ITIF and see what they’ve learned, what they’ve heard from agencies and what their future plans are to build on this research.
Design and Conflict: Do You Know Your Conflict Style?
Building empathy towards users is always a part of the UX process, but it’s not always common practice to build empathy towards our teammates. Here’s an idea to proactively address conflict and build empathy through understanding on your team.
CFPB Serves up Financial Tips to Seniors
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Meals on Wheels America have created multilingual educational resources about financial scams that target the elderly which can be easily distributed to seniors in the communities they serve, and downloaded or ordered in bulk for free by the general public. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Consumer Education &
Government Launches Login.Gov to Simplify Access to Public Services
Joel Minton, a member of the U.S. Digital Service, is working with GSA’s Technology Transformation Service as the director of login.gov. Tom Mills is the Chief Technology Architect at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In early April, the U.S. Digital Service and 18F launched login.gov, a single sign-on solution for government websites that will enable
Shedding Light on Underserved Users through Research
How user interviews helped spotlight the needs of a previously forgotten group. We may not like to admit it, but, most web services or sites have users that (for whatever reason) just aren’t well understood—and in turn, not well served. Conducting user interviews and making sure you get good participation from those groups can help
The Data Briefing: Federal Government Pioneers in Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Training
When I was in the private sector, around the year 2000, I worked for an information technology (IT) consulting company as a project manager and developer. On one project, I provided support for early mobile devices given to medical students. I worked in a small office around the corner from the cardio-respiratory simulator (CRS). The
The Cutting EDGE: New Virtual Training Prepares First Responders for Active Shooter Incidents
Amidst the chaos of an active shooter event, preparedness is key to a seamless, swift and effective response—and a new video game funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory just might do the trick.
Have You Critiqued Your Critique Process?
DEMO Whenever I hear someone complain about the process of a design critique, I’m always a bit surprised. Blame it on the fact
The Data Briefing: Ten Years of Digital Transformation—Lessons Learned
Since 2007, a major consulting firm has conducted an annual survey on organizations’ “Digital IQ.” In the ten years of organizations grappling with digital transformation, what has been learned?
Vets.gov: A Modern Software Development Environment in Government
When people think of government software, they often think of COBOL and PowerBuilder 5, with manual software deploys every three to six months on a fixed number of machines in a government-run data center. This perception is sometimes justified, but sometimes entirely wrong. Regardless, the perception makes many developers reluctant to work for the government
VA Innovators Network Program: Ahead of the Curve in Healthcare Innovation
VA Innovators Network Program Selected as FedHealth IT Innovation Award Winner This month, FedHealth IT announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Innovators Network Program was selected as a 2017 recipient of the FedHealthIT Innovation Award. FedHealth IT recognized 25 Federal Health
Improving Customer Experience with Digital Personas
Keeping the customer’s needs front and center is important when developing new digital tools. We recently developed a set of user personas as part of our work to establish a more robust—and data informed—understanding of the individuals that engage digitally with the National Archives (NARA). User personas are fictional, but realistic representations of key audience
Opening Public Services to Artificial Intelligence Assistants
“Hey, Computer, how do I access my public services?” Citizens will soon be able to ask their Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPA) this question through an Emerging Citizen Technology open-sourced pilot program. The purpose of the initiative is to guide dozens of federal programs make public service information available through automated, self-service platforms for the home
The New FEC.gov
Last week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) unveiled their new website at FEC.gov. This new site is the result of a years-long collaboration with GSA’s 18F and features completely revamped tools for exploring campaign finance data. It provides user-centered content for understanding the reporting and compliance requirements for people participating in federal elections, redesigned tools
Benefits of Accessible Design
According to the World Bank, approximately one billion people worldwide live with a disability, making up the world’s largest minority. Designing from an accessibility-first standpoint has the potential to benefit all stakeholders, not just people with disabilities, because accessible design typically delivers a better user experience. Currently many websites and digital platforms are inaccessible, which makes them difficult
GetMyFuture.org: Essential Youth Resources, Now
They say that life can be summed up as the process of a series of doors closing. By that, they mean that opportunities for taking different paths start to disappear as you move through life. It’s a logical sentiment, but there’s an obverse to it. When you’re young, all those doors are open. Doors as far as you can see. It’s all about learning how to make informed decisions about what doors to wander through.
How the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Uses the U.S. Web Design Standards
As mentioned in our recent Q&A with the team at NASA, the U.S. Web Design Standards team is sitting down with various agencies that are using the Standards. In this second post in our series, we met with the team at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and learned how they used the Standards to
