{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
    "content" : "news",
    "type" : "single",
    "title" : "NSF.gov – Usability Case Study |Digital.gov",
    "description": "NSF.gov – Usability Case Study",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2012/11/05/nsf-gov-usability-case-study/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"NSF.gov \u0026#8211; Usability Case Study","summary" : "Many government websites are informational in nature – you don’t sign up for things or buy anything. Instead, you look for something – a name, a ruling, some contact information. Informational sites – and scientific sites in particular – can be a challenge to design. With so much information, how do you make the important","date" : "2012-11-05T11:57:16-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"jonathan-rubin" : "Jonathan Rubin"},"topics" : {
        
            "research" : "Research",
            "usability" : "Usability",
            "user-experience" : "User experience"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2012-11-05-nsf-gov-usability-case-study.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2012/11/2012-11-05-nsf-gov-usability-case-study.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2012/11/2012-11-05-nsf-gov-usability-case-study.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2012/11/2012-11-05-nsf-gov-usability-case-study.md","slug" : "nsf-gov-usability-case-study","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2012/11/05/nsf-gov-usability-case-study/","content" :"\u003cp\u003eMany government websites are informational in nature – you don’t sign up for things or buy anything. Instead, you look for something – a name, a ruling, some contact information. Informational sites – and scientific sites in particular – can be a challenge to design. With so much information, how do you make the important content stand out?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe National Science Foundation’s \u003ca href=\"http://nsf.gov/\"\u003eNSF.gov\u003c/a\u003e site conducted a usability test with some help from the DigitalGov User Experience Program. Here are some screenshots showing how the design improved as a result of the test.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBefore\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUsers assumed that pages with studies from 2006 or before hadn’t been updated in years and weren’t relevant\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/12/NSF-before-2012_1.jpg\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/12/NSF-before-2012_1.jpg\"\n    alt=\"nsf before screen shot\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAfter\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNew “Most Current” label let users know that, even if a report was many years old, it could still be the most current data available\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/12/NSF-after-2012-1.jpg\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/12/NSF-after-2012-1.jpg\"\n    alt=\"NSF-after-2012 (1)\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}