USA.gov Case Study

USA.gov (formerly FirstGov) is the official web portal of the United States federal government.

GobiernoUSA.gov is its Spanish language counterpart.

Between 2005 and 2006, I served as the User Experience Lead on the redesign of both sites.

Key Questions

• How do you design a user experience when your target audience is the entire U.S.?
• How do you develop a multi-lingual web presence?
• How do you create a taxonomy that encompasses the entire U.S. federal government?

Project Highlights

• Developed 15 wireframes to improve information design
• Identified 12 personas to express key user types and need states
• Streamlined and rebalanced existing site taxonomy
• Developed an improved system of audience-based navigation
• Implemented a multi-language navigation that includes a set of bi-directional toggle links between English and Spanish content
• Conducted three rounds of usability testing on a clickable prototype

The Results

USA.gov is a case study for best practices in the federal web community. Users enjoy faster page loads, cleaner layouts, improved search functionality, and more intuitive navigation.

Following the redesign, USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov received several prestigious awards, including:

• 2009 The Brookings Institution: #1 Federal Website (PDF - 2 MB)
• 2008 The Brookings Institution: #1 Federal Website
• 2007 Brown University e-Government Report: #1 Federal Website
• 2007 Time Magazine: 25 Sites We Can't Live Without