GSA Launches Enhanced User Experience for USA.gov

                                                    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LAUREL, MD, May 8, 2007– In conjunction with GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communication (OCSC), Aquilent, Inc. announced, today, the launch of the redesigned USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov web sites. Aquilent was engaged by GSA to provide services to design and test the user experience, information architecture, and branding for USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov.

USA.gov was originally launched in September 2000, as FirstGov.gov, and provides the only cross-agency, cross-branch, intergovernmental consolidation of government web service and information in the United States. With more than 550 pages of content and 21,000 external links, USA.gov has been the definitive source for the public to find information about federal, state, and local government issues. In addition, USA.gov has over 700 external links to more than 150 federal agencies and sub-agencies, state governments, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and provides instant access to the government’s 125,000 Spanish-language Web pages.

GSA’s goal was to implement a user-centric approach to redesigning the USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov sites and was looking for an experienced partner, such as Aquilent, to execute their vision. Aquilent’s user experience and web development teams have worked with OCSC’s USA.gov team to refresh the look and feel, branding, design, and navigation of both sites. Aquilent provided complete user-centered design services for the user interface refresh of USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov, including:

• Detailed analysis of usability metrics and stakeholder interviews to develop redesign requirements
• High-level information architecture reorganization
• Development of several site design options
• Planning/conducting several rounds of usability testing to determine baseline issues, evaluate and select design options, and validate usability of the final designs
• Hispanic language and cultural experts to address the unique requirements and usability for GobiernoUSA.gov
  

Aquilent’s user-centric approach to web design is an industry best practice and has ensured that GSA’s new English and Spanish-language site designs are intuitive and that information is readily accessible to the public. Multiple rounds of iterative design and usability testing lead to an increase in overall usability and user satisfaction, according to test participants.

Through this user-centric approach, Aquilent was able to add or improve several features that make it easier for users to find the information they need and to improve the overall user experience. These features include:

• New feature box that can be quickly added to communicate urgent/emergency information
• Utility to increased font size for visually-impaired users
• Topic-based architecture to facilitate a more intuitive site design
• More balanced site layout to reduce visual clutter, especially on the homepage
• Cross-linking between pages to make it easier to find information on related topics
• Decreased number of links for quicker access to information
• New colors and design elements to attract users to key information
• Culturally relevant colors and images for GobiernoUSA.gov
• Toggle functionality for GobiernoUSA.gov users to switch to the equivalent English language content

“USA.gov is leading the charge into the next generation of e-government and making it easier to find information about the U.S. government,” said David Fout, Aquilent’s President and CEO. “The newly refreshed site designs for USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov reflect GSA’s vision for accessible government information, as well as Aquilent’s ability to incorporate our web presence subject matter expertise and user-centered design process to bring that vision to reality.”

Aquilent also assisted GSA with several other related tasks that supported implementing the web design changes into their backend systems to ensure that new content reflected the new information architecture and the new design and content features.

For the USA.gov Refresh contract, Aquilent serves as the prime contractor and has two subcontractors, Captura Group, a pioneer in the development of in-language and in-culture Hispanic online solutions, and Shugoll Research, a woman-owned full-service market research firm specializing in qualitative and quantitative research, operating a research and usability facility, in Bethesda, MD.

About Aquilent

Aquilent is an award-winning company with a history over more than 25 years of providing innovative information technology and web-based services to federal agencies. Aquilent improves the quality and efficiency of service to citizens, employees, and businesses through a suite of solutions and services, including agency web presence, compliance management, enterprise acquisition and finance solutions, and enterprise content management. Additional information about Aquilent is available at www.aquilent.com

About Captura Group
Since 1999, Captura Group has pioneered the development of in-language and in-culture Hispanic online solutions, enabling leading companies and organizations to connect with Hispanics online. Balancing business objectives while delivering customer value is at the heart of Captura Group’s user-centered design philosophy. Captura Group’s bilingual and bicultural team brings an innate understanding of Hispanics’ cultural predispositions as well as their linguistic challenges in order to develop online solutions that address Hispanics’ cultural issues while communicating with them in their language of choice. Additional information about Captura Group is available at www.capturagroup.com.

About Shugoll Research
Shugoll Research is a woman-owned full-service market research firm with more than 48 years of experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative research. Shugoll’s years of experience operating a research facility and conducting qualitative research locally and nationwide, including many usability tests, means that Shugoll Research understands the procedures involved and the quality control mechanisms employed to obtain high-quality research on any project. Shugoll Research has extensive experience conducting usability tests where respondents go online to evaluate Web sites and Web-based applications, and operates a recently renovated state-of-the-art research facility in Bethesda, Maryland.

Contact

Mike Tock
Aquilent, Inc.
301.939.1114
mike.tock@aquilent.com