{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
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    "type" : "single",
    "title" : "A small team's journey through digital maturity |Digital.gov",
    "description": "A small team's journey through digital maturity",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2024/07/08/a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"A small team's journey through digital maturity","deck" : "How Digital.gov starts with real user needs","summary" : "As a small team, Digital.gov adopted user research and customer experience early. That foundation helps develop evidence-based strategies for today.","date" : "2024-07-08T15:55:00-05:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"sarah-schroeder" : "Sarah Schroeder"},"topics" : {
        
            "best-practices" : "Best practices",
            "customer-experience" : "Customer experience",
            "human-centered-design" : "Human-centered design",
            "usability" : "Usability",
            "user-experience" : "User experience"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2024-07-08-a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2024/07/2024-07-08-a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2024/07/2024-07-08-a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2024/07/2024-07-08-a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity.md","slug" : "a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2024/07/08/a-small-teams-journey-through-digital-maturity/","weight" : "1","content" :"\u003cp\u003eDigital.gov is where federal employees go for advice and best practices in human-centered web design.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo you might think that Digital.gov’s community feedback processes have always run like a well-oiled machine. But in truth, Digital.gov has faced the same challenges as many other teams when it comes to delivering digital services. Still, we are pleased with how our feedback channels have scaled, matured, and improved with effort.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy starting with small, attainable efforts, we are able to break down big, lofty goals into smaller, achievable tasks. Here are some ways you can follow in our footsteps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"strong-user-feedback-infrastructure\"\u003eStrong user feedback infrastructure\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eToday, Digital.gov uses robust community feedback operations, including a \u003ca href=\"https://touchpoints.digital.gov/\"\u003eTouchpoints\u003c/a\u003e survey, data from the \u003ca href=\"https://digital.gov/guides/dap/\"\u003eDigital Analytics Program\u003c/a\u003e and other web analytics tools, a user research initiative, and post-event and community-wide feedback surveys.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn late 2023, we worked with GSA’s Office of Customer Experience to design a large survey of our community members, which resulted in feedback from 504 people. We used the results to enhance our connection with and participation among community members. For example, we began hosting new events for specific communities of practice and working with community leaders to increase community members’ satisfaction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"building-the-capacity-for-user-feedback\"\u003eBuilding the capacity for user feedback\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFive years ago, community-wide surveys for about 8,000 members across seven communities would have been more than we could handle. Back then, we were a much smaller team; at one point only one person supported Digital.gov. As the team grew, we were able to strategically scale our customer feedback processes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe started by implementing a simple Touchpoints feedback form that featured a “thumbs up/thumbs down” prompt on each page. Over time, we worked to add an open-ended text box for folks to tell us what they thought about a specific page on the site. We were able to organize responses in a spreadsheet, and outline standard operating procedures. It was an easy place to start because this kind of survey doesn’t require Office of Management and Budget approval under the \u003ca href=\"https://pra.digital.gov/\"\u003ePaperwork Reduction Act\u003c/a\u003e (PRA).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRevising our feedback form made it easier to identify where to make improvements to site content. For example, we discovered low satisfaction ratings on blog posts that were more than five years old. In response, we created an alert banner that is automatically added to blogs that are more than five years old. The banner, which explains that links may be broken due to the age of the content, serves to improve user trust and reduces the number of customer support requests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"new-policies-brought-new-challenges\"\u003eNew policies brought new challenges\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the time the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued \u003ca href=\"https://digital.gov/resources/delivering-digital-first-public-experience/\"\u003eM-23-22, Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience\u003c/a\u003e in September 2023, Digital.gov was well-positioned to develop evidence-based strategies for implementing the new policy guidance. However, we had to work fast because the community expected us to respond as soon as the memo came out — and at that point, Digital.gov’s own staff was still reading and absorbing the memo’s contents.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It was the ‘fly the plane while you’re building the engine’ problem that so many small teams face,” says Ammie Farraj Feijoo, product manager for Digital.gov at GSA’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS). Customer experience, Ammie says, best practices encourage “you be honest with customers about what you can provide. Don’t set their expectations too high; be honest about what you’re doing, when, and how. We had to be forthright and vulnerable about where we were in the process of responding to M-23-22.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThanks to the human-centered infrastructure the Digital.gov team put in place before M-23-22 was released, we managed to quickly conduct interviews with agency leaders who needed support implementing recommendations in the memo. “One thing we heard,” Ammie remembers, “is that users needed help understanding the context of the memo, including a focus on the big-picture goals, and the why.” We realized that government teams would be best motivated by focusing on the human needs and frustrations that the policy guidance seeks to address through its hundred-plus requirements.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"quote-block \"\u003e\n    \u003cblockquote\u003e\n      \u003cspan class=\"quote-block__quotation-mark\"\u003e“\u003c/span\u003e\n      Users can\u0026rsquo;t find what they actually need on websites. Leaders [in the digital space] need to realize this memo is about the people we\u0026rsquo;re here to serve. Our websites need to add value, be easy to use, fast, and accessible for our users.\n      \u003cspan class=\"quote-block__quotation-mark\"\u003e”\u003c/span\u003e\u003ccite\u003e— Digital.gov community member\u003c/cite\u003e\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n  \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"helping-the-federal-community-adapt\"\u003eHelping the federal community adapt\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis insight shaped a transformation in our team’s communications approach: “We stopped talking about the memo itself and started talking about what is being done for the public,” Ammie explains.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe post-memo user interviews were accompanied by a large content audit, which showed that many older blog posts already on the site contained evergreen content that could be adapted to help teams navigate the current challenges they’re facing as they pursue more user-centered approaches to government web strategy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe responded by setting up redirects from old blog posts to new content. We’re also improving templates, adjusting Digital.gov’s information architecture, and — of course — publishing new content about M-23-22, other web and digital policies, and what these requirements mean for agency web teams and the public.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"start-small-and-scale\"\u003eStart small and scale\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on her experience at Digital.gov, Ammie hopes that other teams won’t let their current capacity control their aspirations for the future. \u0026ldquo;Don’t make the excuse that you’re a small team,\u0026rdquo; she advises. \u0026ldquo;Do what you can with what you have. Collect the data, analyze it, show what you can do with the right resources, and keep pushing the envelope.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe believes that with hard work, other teams can follow Digital.gov’s lead to make strategic improvements inspired by \u003ca href=\"https://designsystem.digital.gov/design-principles/#start-with-real-user-needs\"\u003ereal user needs\u003c/a\u003e when the stars align.\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}