Our Blog

Topic: Design and Development

Creating the new benefits experience on USA.gov and USAGov en Español

We’re celebrating the release of our new benefits experience onUSA.gov and USAGov en Español. It features a redesigned benefit finder tool, offering a more streamlined way to find government benefits for health care, housing, food, unemployment, and more.

This major update came as a result of the closing of Benefits.gov, SSABest.Benefits.gov, and GovLoans.gov. It transitions the role of the government’s one-stop shop for federal benefits information to theUSAGov program.

October 01, 2024 Read More

Topics: Content, User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, Performance and Analytics, Multilingual, USAGov

How our developers and accessibility specialists work together

Ensuring USA.gov and USAGov en Español are accessible to people with disabilities is one of our top priorities. And planning for accessibility begins before we create a single piece of code. Learn how developers from our Web Operations team and specialists from our Accessibility team work closely to create an inclusive digital experience.

September 17, 2024 Read More

Topics: User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, Multilingual

How multicultural research guides USAGov’s benefit finder

As we continue to develop content for USAGov’s benefit finder, we work hard to tailor the experience for our Spanish-speaking users. Rather than a straight translation from English, we transcreate Spanish language content to catch the nuances of both language and culture. The process begins with our iterative multilingual user research.

August 27, 2024 Read More

Topics: Design and Development, Multilingual, USAGov

Introducing the new vote.gov

Since its launch in 2016, vote.gov has been known as a trusted source for accurate, official voting information from the U.S. government. We recently gave the site a new look with improved accessibility features and expanded information based on questions we heard from voters. And vote.gov is now available in 19 languages — covering 96% of the American public — with more on the way.

August 27, 2024 Read More

Topics: Content, User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, Performance and Analytics, Multilingual, Vote.gov

A new benefits experience is coming to USAGov

One of the USAGov program’s core focus areas is improving the benefits experience for our users. With customer experience in mind, we’re excited to share a significant change coming this fall. Benefits.gov, which has been hosted by the Department of Labor since 2002, will be sunsetting at the end of September, and we're creating a new benefits experience on USA.gov and USAGov en Español.

August 07, 2024 Read More

Topics: Marketing, Content, Design and Development, Performance and Analytics, Multilingual, USAGov

Developing an easier way to recruit user research participants

It can be challenging for federal programs to recruit people to participate in user research. They need to follow the privacy and security regulations and paperwork reduction laws designed to protect the public, but that adds time and complexity to the process. And it can lead to teams doing less user research with the people their websites serve.

To create a solution to this challenge, USAGov and the 10x program, both part of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), partnered to develop a user research recruitment page at usa.gov/user-research.

August 06, 2024 Read More

Topics: User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, USAGov

Designing for people with disabilities

The Public Experience Portfolio's User Experience (UX) team consistently conducts research to evaluate various aspects of the program. We generally try to recruit a broad audience but also use a prequalification process to ensure diversity. Despite these efforts, we found we weren’t reaching the disability community as thoroughly as we would like. We decided to conduct a dedicated study with individuals who use assistive technology to access USA.gov.

July 16, 2024 Read More

Topics: User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, USAGov

One year with the new USAGov

It’s been a year since we launched reimagined versions of USA.gov and USAGov en Español based on human-centered design (HCD) principles. Last year, we shared posts highlighting how we used those principles to shift our approaches to content development, user experience, and analytics.

May 14, 2024 Read More

Topics: Content, Design and Development, Performance and Analytics, USAGov

Designing with empathy

Empathy was one of the guiding principles we used when we created the new version of USAGov’s benefit finder. We believe that in addition to being a critical component of human-centered design, empathy is essential for our product. People who are applying for federal benefits may be going through a difficult life situation. If we can’t empathize and fail to offer a product that understands and meets people where they are, we might lose the opportunity to provide the practical support they need. 

January 25, 2024 Read More

Topics: User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, USAGov

Accessibility testing: creating digital services everyone can use

Making sure USA.gov and USAGov en Español remain accessible to people with disabilities is essential. So accessibility testing is a regular part of our development process.

January 09, 2024 Read More

Topics: User Experience and Accessibility, Design and Development, USAGov

About this Blog

USAGov, Search.gov and Vote.gov work to make it easier for people to find information from their government about the services they need. Follow our journey and help us learn as we go. 

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