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18F and TTS Office of Acquisition award first assisted acquisition
on December 17, 2020
The Administration for Children & Families’ Office of Family Assistance, TTS, and the vendor community worked together to improve the TANF Data Reporting System (TDRS) to make it easier and faster for States, Tribes, and Territories to support low income families
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Design & research in critical times
on June 2, 2020
18F staff is distributed across the country and the majority of our research has been and will continue to be facilitated remotely. We are sharing our experience to help guide designers and researchers as they adapt to new ways of working and provide some additional considerations to keep in mind while conducting research in critical times.
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Areas for growth part 2: mixed methods
on February 27, 2020
Mixed methods is an approach in the social sciences in which you gather both quantitative and qualitative data in an effort to make more informed and integrated interpretations based on the combined strengths of both types of data.
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Barriers to Government’s Adoption of User-centered Design — And How To Address Them
on November 7, 2019
Last summer, we embarked on a 10x project to explore (and potentially improve) user-centered design practices across the federal government.
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Introduction to remote moderated usability testing, part 2: How
on November 20, 2018
This is the second in a two-part series exploring the basics of running a remote moderated usability test. In part one, we explored usability testing at a high level: what it is and why it’s important. In this post we’ll review a five-step process for conducting your first round of tests
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Introduction to remote moderated usability testing, part 1: What and why
on November 14, 2018
In this two-part series, we’ll provide an introduction to remote moderated usability testing. In part one, we’ll explain what usability testing is and why it’s important, differentiate usability testing from user acceptance testing, and talk about things that aren’t required to do a usability test
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Two exercises for improving design research through reflective practice
on October 23, 2018
Maturing your design research practice is a bit like honing your skills at cooking. Experienced researchers rely on a refined set of sensibilities, or tastes, in their use and application of research methods; they create, curate, and refine informational recipes that turn raw data into palatable insights. And just like cooking, everyone can improve in their research abilities with a bit of reflective practice
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Getting partners on board with research findings
on February 6, 2018
As a consultant who does user research, I’ve found that the way consultants present “findings and recommendations” to clients isn’t always effective: findings immediately followed by recommendations, all at once in a single presentation. A better approach in sharing user research findings with a partner is “findings, consensus, and recommendations.”
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4 lessons from building our own recruiting tool
on November 8, 2017
As of September, GSA is running its own recruiting tool for moderated design research. In this post, we would like to share four key lessons we learned while building this tool, including the ways in which software development can serve as a starting point for broader conversations about information practice, privacy, and security.
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3 ways to manage research projects remotely
on September 27, 2017
At 18F, we have employees across the U.S. Over time, we’ve cultivated our best practices for distributed teams and design methods. Yet, doing research as a remote team is still really hard. Here are some things that we’ve found make it easier.
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Mark Trammell: Unlocking the true potential of public service
on August 26, 2016
All throughout the summer, we’ll be profiling members across the 18F team. Mark Trammell joined 18F in May 2016 after stints at Twitter, Sonos, Digg, Paypal, and Obama for America. He currently works on CALC, a tool that helps the federal contracting community make faster, smarter buying decisions.
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What happens when the whole team joins user interviews
on August 16, 2016
The CALC team is an agile team of four — six if you count the Scrummaster and the Product Owner — building a simple means to load price data into the original CALC tool. They’re an Agile team, which means everybody pitches in on everything to some degree, and here, in their own words, is some reflection on what happened when they all scrubbed in on the discovery phase.
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Build empathy with stakeholder interviews, part 2: Conversation
on July 22, 2016
In the first post of this series, I covered what stakeholder interviews are, why they’re valuable, and how to prepare for them. In this second post, I’ll cover how to actually run the interviews as well as some tips for synthesizing and socializing what you learn.
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Build empathy with stakeholder interviews, part 1: Preparation
on June 20, 2016
In this post, I'll cover what stakeholder interviews are, why they’re valuable, and how to prepare for them. In the second post, I’ll cover how to actually run the interviews as well as some tips for synthesizing and integrating the results into the team’s shared understanding.
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The user-centered redesign of IdentityTheft.gov
on May 24, 2016
IdentityTheft.gov is user-friendly and intentional. We talk to the team behind the redesign about the user research that went into content and design decisions for the site.
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How design consistency helps users navigate federal websites
on March 25, 2016
We launched the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards last September, and over the next month, we plan to explore various topics related to design standards. In this post, we detail how our user research informed the decision decisions we made.
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How user archetypes informed the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards
on March 18, 2016
To celebrate Sunshine Week, we’re highlighting some groundbreaking open government work by the Department of the Treasury, one of 18F’s partner agencies.
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Designing services that are accessible, transparent, and easy for all to use
on March 11, 2016
We're publishing a full report to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. Today we end the series with a look at what we’ll focus on in the next stage of research.
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What people think about before deciding to share personal information with the government
on March 10, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we'll share what people think about before deciding to share personal information with the government.
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Trust as a two-way street between the government and the people it serves
on March 9, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we'll detail when people decide to trust the federal government and how they view the federal government vs. private companies.
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Too many options make complicated decisions harder
on March 8, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we'll talk about how choice overload affects decision-making.
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Transparency within government helps build public trust
on March 7, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we detail the need for transparency in government so that the public can “see” the process they’re undergoing when they’re interacting with federal agencies and programs.
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How people use proxies to interact with the federal government
on March 4, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we detail how people interact with the government using proxies.
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How people learn to navigate government services
on March 3, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we detail how people learn to navigate government services and what barriers exist to accessing services.
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Strategies people use when interacting with the federal government
on March 2, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we detail the strategies people use when interacting with the government.
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What we learned after interviewing dozens of people about their interactions with the federal government
on March 1, 2016
Over the next two weeks, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research to better understand the public's overall experience interacting with the federal government and their attitudes about sharing information with government agencies. In today’s installment, we detail our initial research questions and what we learned.
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Informing the future of the Federal Front Door
on February 29, 2016
Today, we’re publishing a full report with findings from our research on the Federal Front Door, as well as a microsite that will contain future research findings related to these topics. In the coming days, we’ll also be publishing the complete report on the 18F blog.
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Tips for capturing the best data from user interviews
on February 9, 2016
User interviews are, at a minimum, an opportunity for you to ask your intended audience about their expectations, what their needs are and to get direct feedback on the work you’ve done so far or on what you plan to do. But an interview is only as good as the data you get out of it.
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Learning how to build a better “front door” for the federal government
on December 8, 2015
Over the last several months, staff from General Service Administration’s USAGov and 18F teams have been talking to Americans around the country about the good, the bad, and the ugly of interacting with their federal government. The goal of the research is to gain a better understanding of how we can build a better “front door” to the federal government by building new digital services and enhancing existing ones.
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How a two-day sprint moved an agency twenty years forward
on September 9, 2015
At 18F Consulting, we experiment with ways to empower agencies to build cost-efficient, excellent digital solutions. Recently we partnered with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to run a two day “Design/Dev Agile Sprint” to help them modernize their Field Operations Handbook.
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UX lessons learned from a procurement project
on March 6, 2015
UX designer Nick Brethauer talks about how user research better informs the products 18F builds.
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Announcing OASIS Discovery: making market research easier
on March 4, 2015
18F is glad to announce the beta release of a new procurement tool, Discovery. Discovery will allow federal acquisition personnel to conduct initial market research more easily and quickly - allowing users to discover and research vendors offering work across a number of professional service categories.
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Five ways to turn a bad idea into a great one: Steve Portigal event recap
on February 26, 2015
In February, consultant and author Steve Portigal left behind the California sunshine to speak at the 18F headquarters. Steve — principal at Portigal Consulting, author, podcaster, and ramen aficionado — expounded on the topic of bad ideas: Namely, how they add value to the creative process and why we should seek them out.
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Five questions with Steve Portigal
on February 18, 2015
Since October, 18F has been bringing in noted individuals from the software development world to discuss their work, and we’re excited to kick off a new, design-focused series this Friday, February 20 (10:30 a.m. ET) with Steve Portigal, author of Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights and host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast.
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