NITAAC

Branding / Research / Systems / UX
10-27-22
Collaborative Project

HOW DO YOU HELP GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES GET THE TOOLS THEY NEED?

I worked as the research lead on a government contract to refine a federal agency’s digital presence through a redesign of the public-facing website and other digital channels.

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BRIEF
NITAAC (NIH [National Institute of Health] Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center) is a federal agency specializing in government acquisitions within HHS (The Department of Health and Human Services). As complex government agency serving countless federal customers, NITAAC’s website serves a large variety of users, including customers, government procurement specialists, business contract holders (of various sizes and constraints), subcontractors, and NITAAC internal staff.

This digital platform needed to facilitate the acquisition process for wildly different users as they navigated to the right platform or service that fitted their needs.

RESEARCH

The design process started by intensive fact finding through interviews with stakeholders across the NITAAC’s internal processes. Government acquisitions is a complex process and understanding the subject matter more closely defined the challenges, constraints, and opportunities possible in this redesign. Through this background research, four major archetypes arose as the key users for the NITAAC website: Potential Federal Customers, Existing Federal Customers, Large Business Contract Holders, and Small Business Contract Holders.

USER I. Federal Customers (Potential)

Wants to quickly find the best deal within regulatory compliance. Uses NASA SEWP or GSA but could be swayed by a competitor.

USER II. Federal Customers (Existing)

Wants to quickly find the best deal within regulatory compliance. Current NITAAC user wanting a fast, easy, and accurate process.

USER III. Contract Holders (Large Business)

Wants to maintain and grow their government contracts to expand their business.

USER IV. Contract Holders (Small Business)

Wants to find the best opportunities to grow their business through qualifying subsidies.

The initial redesign focused on the needs of the first two users: potential and existing federal customers. Gaining access to users for research presented a challenge. Often, acquiring access to users and asking them to devote time to testing requires an incentive, like money or a gift card. As federal employees were the target user, there was some complexity to creating user incentives to participate in testing without violating rules around gifts to individuals in government.

Utilizing contacts within NITAAC, I was able to schedule nine interviews with existing federal customers of NITAAC. I created a interview guide to structure each conversation, and facilitated each interview session (with another designer transcribing).

Affinity map of user insights from nine user interviews.

Combining the previous stakeholder conversations with this additional qualitative data from user interviews, the previous user archetypes were refined into more detailed personas, clarifying their specific needs and frustrations.

PERSONA I. Federal Customer (Potential)

PERSONA II. Federal Customer (Existing)

USER III. Contract Holders (Large Business)

USER IV. Contract Holders (Small Business)

RESEARCH INSIGHTS
What were the take-aways of all this additional research?

The majority of insights from the affinity map centered on issues surrounding website behavior, website content, the acquisitions process, trainings, the CS Catalog, and information architecture. Just a few insights are listed below, stated from the user’s point of view as a method of reinforcing empathy.

User Statement

Design Insight

“As an experienced user, I utilize the website to go straight to e-GOS, not touching the main website because I know what I need for my role and it's all connected to e-GOs.”

Access to e-GOS is a high-priority task for most users and should be immediately available upon accessing the site.

“I find the acquisitions process very ambiguous and convoluted; I want more consistent, clear guidance because it would help me complete my tasks more proficiently and confidently.”

A clear explanation of the entire ordering process would be a helpful resource.

“I need more information about the use of GWACs because I don't understand their differentiators.”

Explaining what is a GWAC is key to understanding NITAAC’s offerings.

“I want direct, up-to-date paths to where I need to go through clear calls to action and links so that the website is intuitive to use.”

Website navigation needs to be improved.

I would appreciate and expect mobile responsiveness but I often wouldn't utilize it because numerous government factors.”

While web responsiveness was still a requirement, the desktop experience is prioritized over mobile.

“I need NITAAC to be organized effectively to procurement priorities so that I can find what' important to me quickly and easily.”

Additional testing and improvements to website architecture would present impactful improvements.

IMPROVING ARCHITECTURE
Based on client priorities and reaffirmed by this research, a common point of potential improvement was the refinement of the website’s complex site architecture to improve the website’s information structure and facilitate connecting users to services. For example, potential customers need to quickly understand the value and process of NITAAC while quickly onboarding through the correct contract vehicle. Having a more refined and organized website structure would aid that process.

These improvements first began with additional user testing focused purely on architecture. Using an “open” card sort test, I asked federal customer users to group existing website categories to find common expected associations between groups of content.

Open Closed Sort Association Matrix

Examining this data, I utilized various methods of visualization including dendrograms, and visual matrices showing user placement and most common associations. Pushing the inquiry further, these baseline insights informed a new high-level structure that was tested through a “closed” card sort test. This examined if the new proposed structure was accurate to user assumptions of where content should be located.

Closed Cart Sort Popular Placements Matrix

Taking the previous user interviews combined with these latest insights with information architecture, I proposed a new website structure including a new navigation and site layout. This new design solution significantly streamlined the content displayed by the site, providing an simpler navigation experience following UX heuristics of the capacity of short term memory.

Existing Sitemap

Revised Sitemap

This redesign was followed by the creation of new mockups of the entire website, utilizing the opportunity of this new structure and a CMS transition to refine the visual design of NITAAC’s website. While the existing style of the government agency was maintained, the look was made cleaner and more consistent.

REVIEW AND ITERATION
Website and individual element performance were monitored through the use of website analytics, including Google Analytics and Hotjar. Hotjar specifically allowed close examination of user behaviors. In particular, the metrics of scroll depth, hover rates, click rates, user satisfaction surveys, and recorded website sessions provided valuable feedback to suggest further refinement. Between these analytics and further qualitative interviews, the new website design showcased positive results in improving website navigation and information comprehension.

As an agile development team, the redesign happened in stages as additional features were implemented in stages to minimize user confusion and perform proper QA. I also contributed to the QA process through testing documentation and the creation of detailed release notes. While also contributing to website development, I also led monthly team-wide presentations on new developments from analytics data, helping to inform the wider team and clients on the UX team’s work and advocating for best design practices.

Additionally other features were concurrently developed for the NITAAC website, including a separate portal for contract holders, the NITAAC U learning platform, and a website chatbot.

LESSONS

Overall this project presentation a few lessons informing my design process moving forward. Acquiring users can sometimes be a difficult process, but it is still a highly valuable research that is the foundation for data-driven design. Additionally, while flexibility for the design process is crucial following client and business requirements, there are also moments where its crucial to advocate for design best practice. I also found collaborating with developers and deeply studying the subject matter to be very valuable.

ALEUT FEDERAL WEBSITE
Additionally, working for Aleut Federal, I provided the basis of research on the redesign of the company website. Establishing the existing site architecture through content audits and sitemaps, I provided specific recommendations for how site architecture and content could be improved following the user paths of visitors, including potential clients, potential employees, and existing employees. Beyond improving the website’s utility, the redesign is intended to be a live demo of company capabilities, as Aleut Federal develops digital products through an interactive, human-centered design lens.

Aleut Website (Previous and Revised)