Dramatic update to site look and navigation
Extensive usability testing to validate and refine design
Unique in culture and in language design approach for Español.gov
The Golden @
GSA – USA.gov (aka FirstGov) Refresh
The General Services Administration's (GSA) Office of Citizen Services and Communications (OCSC) enlisted Aquilent to refresh the design and improve the user experience for USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov. Aquilent also helped launch the original FirstGov.
USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov are citizen-friendly portals that organize external links to other Government Web sites. USA..gov currently consists of approximately 375 English-language and 177 Spanish-language pages. The content consists primarily of page titles and descriptions, carefully-selected external URLs, and link titles and descriptions. USA.gov currently has 10 page types built into its Content Management System.
Key challenges for the USA.gov project include:
- Understanding what the general U.S. audience wants from its Government on the Web
- Knowing what content exists across the Government's millions of Web pages
- Combining and organizing the above to create a useful portal to Government information
To accomplish the project goals, Aquilent is:
- Analyzing the current presentation and functionality of the portal
- Developing page designs and graphics
- Improving site navigation
- Recommending overall improvements to USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov
- Conducting extensive usability tests for both sites
The refreshed USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov sites will do the following:
- Reduce page load time
- Create a less cluttered appearance
- Present new functionality
- Improve branding to communicate that the sites are the official Web portal to the U.S. Government
- Feature topics, including late breaking news and emergencies
- Enhance each site's usability and usefulness
- Serve as a best practices case study for multi-lingual web programs
