A look back at what took place in the Design System in 2022.
2022
Usability
How easily and effectively people can accomplish their goals using a product or system, while having a positive experience.
More News and Events on Usability
135 posts
To Build Trust, Aim for Easy
Trust is earned through consistency and commitment. Build sites that build trust by considering user needs, respecting people’s time, and avoiding customer experience pitfalls.
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
USER EXPERIENCE AND MULTILINGUAL
USAGov: Usability Test Reports
Join us for an overview of usability test reports on the next version of USA.gov.
2022
User Research
Managing Stakeholder Feedback: Lessons from Experience
During the 2022 Plain Language Summit, Stephanie Morrison from the Department of Health and Human Services provided five tips for managing reviewers when asking for feedback.
User Experience
DHS Usability Testing Kit — So Easy, Anyone Can Do It
Join us for an overview of the Department of Homeland Security’s new Usability Testing Kit, including its four approaches to usability testing.
2022
Plain Language
Increase Your Impact With Plain Language
Get tips and lessons learned from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division on using plain language to increase their impact and influence.
2022
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.
Plain Language
Plain Language + Compassion Help People in Crisis
Meet the content strategists who worked to transform FindTreatment.gov to connect people in crisis with the help that they need.
2022
USWDS
Webinar Recap: U.S. Web Design System October 2021 Monthly Call
In this recap of the October 2021 U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) Monthly Call, the USWDS team shares how their community can help teams solve problems together, and what tools and channels we can use to ask questions, get answers, and provide useful feedback.
USWDS
Webinar Recap: U.S. Web Design System September 2021 Monthly Call
For our September call, we focused on the future of the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS): Where does the design system go from USWDS 2.0? What did we learn from our 1.0 and 2.0 releases? Read key points and takeaways from this month’s presentation.
Plain Language
2021 Federal Plain Language Summit
On 9/21/21, PLAIN’s Fourth Federal PL Summit showcases federal employees’ plain language projects. Topics include COVID-19 agency responses, accessibility, user experience, and career enhancement.
2021
User Experience
Building a Bureau-Wide Usability Collaboration Group: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Geological Survey
Learn about the U.S. Geological Survey’s Usability Collaboration Area in this short interview with the group’s organizer.
Research
Involving End Users at All Stages To Create Actionable Science Products for Complex, Real-World Issues
How co-production methods increase the usefulness of scientific results, products, and tools
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.
In this two-part Analytics Case Study, we’ll speak with the GSA’s FedRAMP team about their analytics strategy, data collection, reporting, and subsequent decision-making for a new site launch.
2021
A/B Testing
How To Navigate Challenges to Successfully A/B Test Your Emails
The article will go over some best practices of implementing A/B testing on your emails.
User Experience
How Testing Your Documents Can Improve Plain Language Compliance
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
2021
This presentation lays out USPS.com’s continuous improvement approach and how it combines analytics and customer feedback with iterative heuristic reviews, design, and usability testing to monitor, improve, and evolve the USPS.com CX.
Watch Video
2020
Metrics
Zero Pageviews Is Your Goal: Finding Problem Pages with Website Analytics
Improve customer experience by turning your website analytics upside down to track the numbers for pages you DON’T want visitors to see.
