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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.

Federal laws protect voting rights for people with disabilities, but many people with disabilities experience barriers to voting, leading to lower voting rates. 

After the November 2022 midterm elections, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) estimated that if voters with disabilities had voted at the same rates as voters without disabilities, there would be around 2 million more votes cast. The EAC also found that people with disabilities voted at a 3.6 percent lower rate than people without disabilities, though that number narrowed to 1.5 percent after being adjusted with updated Census data. 

Accessibility matters both in person and online. As an official government source of voting information, vote.gov helps voters with disabilities know that their voting rights are protected by law. And it makes them aware of accommodations available to help them register and vote.

At USA.gov and USAGov en Español, we’re always striving to make our content more useful to the public. Meta descriptions are one way we help people quickly find the government information they’re looking for.

Search.gov connects the public with easy access to the government information and services they need, creating a unified search experience across over one-third of federal domains. Our program’s core mission and goals are the same every year, but how did the way people interact with government search change in 2023? 

Last fall, vote.gov and the USAGov program partnered on our first “social media takeover” for a day-long campaign encouraging people to register to vote. As key players connecting people to official government information and services, we rooted this effort in our mutual messaging and goals to help guide the public.

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. 

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.

Most people have probably used search filters on e-commerce sites to select different options to narrow down search results. Now Search.gov is offering the same flexibility to federal websites, giving their users control over the amount of detail they get in their search results.