Design for America: Participating by Redesigning DOL.gov

Posted May 25, 2010 // 1 comments

There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website that is hard  to navigate or poorly designed. Users  seek information  and when that information is difficult to access, it causes a breakdown in communication, frustration, and a bad experience.

One of the most important parts of being a US Citizen is the freedom we have to share information and have a say in our government. Unfortunately, many of the government agency sites  are  designed in a way that makes information  difficult to  access. They have not kept up with the demands of citizens for transparent information.

Being a designer in the Washington DC area, I have had the opportunity to work on a lot of different government websites. Designing  for the government sometimes gets a  bad wrap for numerous reasons, but in my opinion it is one of the most  gratifying genres of sites to design. Not only does the government  have tons of interesting and informative data but it also serves  the people of an entire nation. A redesign of a government website can have a vast impact.  Whether you are helping to make labor statistics more accessible or the process to renew a drivers license more streamlined, it affects thousands seeking services.

When I saw the Design for America Challenge issued by Sunlight Labs, I got really excited. One of the things they do at Sunlight Labs is encourage the government agencies to be more thoughtful and strategic with the way they present information and  data.  They have redesigned USA.gov, The Supreme court's website and the EPA - each with the goal of getting folks within government to collaborate and innovate.

I wanted to choose a site to redesign that effects the majority of US citizens - a site that provides information to everyone but that doesn't currently communicate its potential for helpful resources in an obvious way. Sure, we all know that sites like IRS.gov and the DMV are available online for help, but what about when you have questions about employment. That information IS out there, its just really hard to find.

My highest priority for the redesign of DOL.gov was to make people aware of all the information available to them. By reworking the navigation, including an "about" feature and including a more informative rotator, the user can quickly get an idea of what sort resources the Department of Labor provides. In addition to resources, the DOL also has an enormous amount of data and statistics that I brought to the forefront of the page. Overall the entire experience needed to be optimized to serve the user, not the institution.

The work that Sunlight Labs is doing to get the design community more involved in the federal government's design is admirable.  The other designers and organizations who contributed to Design for America did some awesome work that will hopefully also shed light on what our government needs to do to help be more transparent online. I am excited to have been a part of this experience but even more stoked to see other designers participate too. The more minds we can get thinking about this the more progress we can make in an informed understanding nation.

To read more about my DOL.gov redesign check out this post on my process.
To see the full redesign click here:
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