Usability

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

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.

Alexander Wilson

Oct 24, 2022

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

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.

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

Daniel Yi

Katherine Spivey

Katina Stapleton

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

Meet the content strategists who worked to transform FindTreatment.gov to connect people in crisis with the help that they need.

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

Katherine Spivey

Amanda Costello

Katina Stapleton

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.

Dan Williams

Kathryn Mullan

Nov 15, 2021

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.

Kathryn Mullan

Nov 05, 2021

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.

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

Katherine Spivey

Katina Stapleton

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.

Holly Chandler

Sep 01, 2021

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

Holly Chandler

Aug 13, 2021

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

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.

Hosted by Digital.gov and the Digital Analytics Program (DAP)

Tim Lowden

Freddie Blicher

Betsy Steele

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.

Jenn Wingerberg

May 21, 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.

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

Ginny Redish

Katherine Spivey

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.

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Hosted by Digital.gov and the United States Postal Service

Jeff Pass

Alexander Turgeon

Matt Petrowski