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Digital Transformation for Public Health

Roles
  • Design Manager, Federal Projects
Company/Client
  • USDA,
  • Bixal
Activities
  • Experience Design,
  • Data Analysis & Visualization,
  • Human-Centered Research,
  • Content Strategy,
  • Natural Language Processing,
  • Market Research,
  • Knowledge Management,
  • Agile Design,
  • Information Architecture

The project for USDA aimed to revamp the digital presence for the agency’s food safety and inspection service, crucial for safeguarding public health by protecting the food supply. This involved creating a user-friendly and informative website to build public trust and aid policy formulation.

The Client

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees federal agencies and programs that address issues from food security and public health to environmental stewardship and trade. Its mission is to enhance the quality of life for all Americans by fostering sustainable agricultural practices and ensuring a reliable food supply.

Blockframing & Collaboration

It pays to get creative with the medium of your collaboration and design methods. Here, the deck of components I created served as the catalyst for many conversations around information architecture, layout, and narrative.

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Collaborative design

Collaboration and user feedback were integral to the redesign of the FSIS website, with early sketches and paper prototyping sessions involving clients, stakeholders, and the design team to establish a shared understanding of the project goals.

Food safety as a service

Artifact journeys favor service diagrams. By mapping out the process by which companies obtain licenses we uncovered key relationships in the food safety landscape.

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The single thread connecting multiple audiences

Landscape analysis gave us a systems-wide view of the audiences. We identified key artifacts in this system. One, in particular, stood out: the Hazard Avoidance and Critical Control Points plan (HAACP). Every audience intersects with a HAACP in some way. Scientists and policymakers define it, food processors need it to operate, FSIS inspectors ensure that plants adhere to it, and consumers are impacted by it when it triggers a recall.
The lifecycle of a HAACP guided the refinement of our research plan and, as the common thread that connects federal policy with the food on our dinner plate, provided the initial framework for contextual inquiry.

Emergent stories

By using a platform like Drupal in combination with real data and a deep understanding of the landscape, we were able to identify new, valuable relationships among the different datasources. In this case, aggregating information about food processing establishments into a single view supported the USDA's mission to build transparency into the country's food system.

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Paper protyping. Literally.

I am a firm believer in the value of collaborative design, especially when it comes to establishing trust between your team and stakeholders.

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A flexible, resilient toolbox

Despite the limitations imposed by COVID restrictions, the team maintained a strong focus on human-centered research and design, adapting to remote methodologies without losing sight of user needs.
The team employed a mix of desktop research, fieldwork, and innovative methods like artifact journeys and market data analysis to build and enhance their understanding of food safety practices and the diverse audiences FSIS serves.

Laying out the experience strategy

Blockframing established a shared understanding amongst the team about the role that individual pages and sections played within the larger user experience.

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Multifaceted information architecture

The USDA team’s landscape analysis and audience research led to an information architecture that balanced educational resources for the general public with specific information for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).

Digital prototyping

Once collaborative paper prototyping with the client was complete, we took our new insights into their goals and expectations went straight into digital prototyping with Drupal.

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A shared understanding

A good digital prototype isn't just for testing. It's also a way to provide a cross-functional team with a single voice of authority for content strategy, experience design, and development.

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Making it tangible

Paper prototyping provided both a canvas for collaboration with the client and for evaluating early hypotheses.

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Live data, real testing

Using live data in a digital prototype increased the quality of feedback produced from testing at the same time as it streamlined the process of applying - and testing - new insights.

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Rapid prototyping and iterative design

Emphasizing rapid prototyping and exploration, the USDA team created tangible prototypes for iterative feedback, ranging from Drupal site mockups to paper prototypes of the homepage.

Impression Testing

We tested hypotheses and evaluated designs through unmoderated impression testing. This gave us the insights we needed to transform a reference source designed for food inspectors to a resource tailored to the information needs of the American public.

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Impression testing as part of an empirical design strategy

Unmoderated impression testing was invaluable during COVID. Testing the original site gave us a baseline for measuring progress, and continuous testing throughout design supported quantifiable design decisions.

A critical resource for multiple audiences

The redesigned website now serves as a critical resource for consumers, inspectors, and policymakers, offering a balanced mix of educational resources and specific information tailored to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The redesigned fsis.usda.gov has seen growing usage and value, providing crucial - and current - information on food safety, policy, and inspection.

Data-driven decision making

The USDA team relied on quantitative research, web analytics, and testing to inform the content strategy and refine the information architecture.

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