User Experience

User experience involves every interaction a user has with an agency.

More News and Events on User Experience

446 posts

5 Tips for Communicating Technical Information: iPad Pilot

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” — Mark Twain It’s simple—you’re the technical expert; you know the topic inside out, so of course you can easily explain it to a captive audience. Right? Not always. Communicators in every industry know that message
Nov 12, 2013

Mobile First

Mobile First is the idea that web sites should first be designed for mobile devices, including only those tasks/items that website visitors use most. Then as screen real estate increases, add in tasks/features as needed based on user priority. This means the site
Sep 30, 2013

Plain Language Ninja

A few days ago a coworker asked me to look at a paragraph. He said it was on the top customer service priorities in our division. So I scooted my chair over and looked at it. Then I looked at him and asked, “But what
Sep 26, 2013

Making Mobile Gov: User Experience Recommendations

How We Did It Last November, as part of revisiting the state of Mobile Gov, government mobile innovators identified a need for guidelines to help create amazing and engaging mobile user experiences. We convened a group to workshop around elements of mobile user experience with the
Sep 18, 2013

Usability testers unite! Join our Community

I’m the kind of guy who loves tests. Not SATs, or BMI tests, but usability tests: connecting target customers with a government website and watching how they interact with it. Our DigitalGov User Experience Program (formerly known as First Fridays) has taught dozens of agencies how to conduct
Sep 17, 2013

StudentAid.gov: Improving the College Financing Experience

Guest post by Brenda Wensil, Chief Customer Experience Officer for Federal Student Aid (FSA). Established in late 2010, FSA’s Customer Experience Office is responsible for identifying, measuring and reporting customer expectations and satisfaction with the financial aid services and products offered at Federal Student Aid. The launch of StudentAid.gov in July 2012,
Sep 06, 2013

Looking at User Experience through Two Lenses

Usability and accessibility are slightly different lenses to assess user experience. It is possible to be strong in one area and weak in the other. Using either approach alone could result in an inaccurate view of your site’s user experience. Evaluating your website with both usability and accessibility in mind gives all users the best
Aug 30, 2013

Mobile Product Testing Guidelines and Resources

You have started developing your mobile product, but you may be wondering what and how to test. As with any form of software development, mobile testing should be done intermittently throughout all development stages. This article was developed as part of the Mobile Application Development Program to provide agencies with some general testing strategies, types,
Aug 22, 2013

Mobile Product Accessibility Testing Resources

Accessibility testing is a subset of usability testing and is the inclusive practice of making websites and mobile applications usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. You do this by testing mobile websites and/or applications on all leading browsers, mobile devices and screen readers. This article was developed as part of the Mobile Application
Jul 31, 2013

Understanding Your Customer

Do you know who your customers are? And what they expect from your organization? One of the most critical components of a successful customer experience program is to understand your customer. The first step is knowing who your customers are. Are they veterans, students, senior citizens or other federal workers? In some cases your customers
Jul 25, 2013

Business.USA.gov – Usability Case Study

When redesigning a site, it’s easy to place menu items, text and other content wherever you can make them fit. It’s harder to take a step back and ask the strategic question: Is this the best place for this? A good rule of thumb is to never make any changes randomly—base your decisions on user
Jul 02, 2013

Fueleconomy.gov – Usability Case Study

Many technical websites have a hard time explaining information to the general public. This happens because users don’t understand the industry-specific or scientific terms. Fortunately, solutions to these problems are fairly easy—changing menu and navigation item text, or adding a line of explanatory text on key pages or complex graphics. The DigitalGov User Experience Program
Jul 02, 2013

Army.mil – Usability Case Study

If you want to make a website more efficient and user friendly, then it’s not enough just to have your most valuable information on the site. People are busy—they want to find what they’re looking for, and they want it fast. You don’t always need to redesign an entire site to make things easier to
Jun 19, 2013