Problem:
USAC (Universal Service Administrative Company) exists to help communities and people across the US stay connected through voice and internet services. The organization’s outdated website was hindering their ability to support its partners and applicants.
Our user research showed that external and internal stakeholders had significant frustration in using the site. They said it was a time consuming and intimidating barrier to seeking funding. The difficulty of getting and maintaining service was clearly reducing the impact of the programs.
Further, the site was built on outdated platforms and did not have a content management system (CMS), so small updates required multiple days and people to execute.
Goals:
Rather than create piecemeal fixes to issues with the existing site or try to retrofit a CMS, the decision was made to build a new site with a foundation in user research. The beta strategy would slowly migrate content over, training users along the way on the new navigation and information structures.
Process:
We started with the top-level landing pages, working with program teams to understand the content their users needed to access and developed tools with the data and web teams to support those goals. You can explore the full site.
Workshops
We started the workshops by asking our colleagues to find information on areas of the current website they were not already familiar with. This was a valuable exercise in level-setting the difficulty a user of those pages might also face.
From there, we worked with the subject matter experts (SMEs) for each of the four universal service programs and service provider divisions to verify the proposed site structure and process for building the landing pages
Sprinting Begins!
In two-week sprints, we met with SMEs from one program at a time. The pages designed in this time then moved to development in sprint 2, while we started the next program.
Sketching
Together with the SMEs we worked to narrow down the truly important information for new and returning users, respectively.
Wire Framing
During the wire framing stage, we worked to organize the information and get sign off on the general direction of content.
Exploring Data
We pulled in data experts in the organization to help identify information that could be used to create compelling data visualizations.
Designing
Building from the wire frames and data research, we designed and iterated on those designs with Sketch to find a beautiful solution that met SME and UX/Design requirements for the pages.
Developing
The developers worked hand-in-hand with UX and design throughout the whole process, creating a smooth hand-off when files were ready to be built. They worked to build on a WordPress back end, creating an easy-to-use CMS.
Results:
The updated site provides an improved information hierarchy. The extensive user research informed a clean, updated design. Explore the full site.