Bringing HCI to the U.S. Federal Government

Marti Hearst

UC Berkeley School of Information

Keynote: ACM CHIMIT 2011

What do we mean by HCI?

Also UCD / UX?

Why is HCI difficult to introduce to any organization?

Roadblocks for HCI: any organization

Engineering leads decision makingUnaware of UCD practicesConcern that it “takes too long”The HIPPO decides

(Highest Paid Person in the Organization)

Waterfall development method

Example: ACM ManuscriptCenral

HCI in the Federal Government

Problem: Most Government IT Projects Fail Or are very behind schedule and over cost

Executive Office of the President

OSTPScience & Tech

Policy

CTO

OMBManagement and Budget

OIRA Information and

RegulatoryAffairs

e-Gov and ITCIO

And manyother offices

HCI Practice Lacking

The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 empowered federal CIOs

However, their work has never emphasized human-centered design

Instead, focus on Procurement, budgeting Security Manage $hundreds of millions, if not billions

Changes with a New Administration

Campaign: Emphasis on design and use of IT

Governing: Emphasis on improving government, including:

Emphasis on reaching and involving citizens• Open data, visualization, online dialogues

Emphasis on modernizing IT practices:• Elevation of Federal CIO position• Introduction of Federal CTO position• Improving procurement• Encouraging agile development

Setting a Good Design Example

Using IT (and analytics) to Win

Example: Dan Siroker on Obama for America’s website and video design

decisions Easy to measure the outcome: it is in money donated. http://www.siroker.com/archives/2009/05/14/obama_lessons_learned_talk_at_google.html

Additional Roadblocks for Gov’t HCI

HCI practice lacking in government software IT Rare to have usability groups in IT An exception: HHS usability labs and website

Agile (iterative) software development is rare Funding model does not support it Neither does oversight model Neither do vendor procurement practices.

Numerous legal hurdles

Legal Hurdles: PRA Paperwork Reduction Act

Goal: ensure that information collected is useful and minimally burdensome for the public.

To ask a question of 10 or more people, must: Clear internal legal process, then 60 days in the Federal Register

May need to iterate based on comments Submit documents to OMB Another 30 day federal register notice period ~60 days for OMB review

May need to iterate and even start again Usually a 6 month process.

New: PRA Fast Track Released by OMB in June 15, 2011 Part of the administration’s customer service emphasis

President's Executive Order (EO) 13571, on "Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” April 2011.

OMB clearance in 5 days! Applies to information collections that focus on

the awareness, understanding, attitudes, preferences, or experiences of stakeholders

relating to existing or future services, products, or communication materials.

Specifically includes: Focus groups Remote usability testing Online surveys for customer feedback purposes

However, public distribution of results cannot be intended.

New: Ways to Engage Citizens

There are many existing methods Requests for comments FACA committees

But guidance needed for IT-based ones Social media Interactive idea discussion tools

Legal Hurdles: Impediments to Adoption of Off-the-Shelf and SaaS Software

TOSPIIOWACS COOP508 Cookies

Legal Hurdles: Impediments to Adoption of Off-the-Shelf and SaaS Software

TOS (Terms of Service)PII (Personally Identifiable Information)OWACS (Security requirements)COOP (Disaster recovery requirements)508 (Accessibility Standards)Cookies (Persistent Cookie Restrictions)

New: tools to help internallyApps.gov

Setting up (somewhat) pre-approved software that addresses these hurdles.

Howto.gov Explicitly addresses many customer service how-to

questions

Usa.gov/webreform Improving government web sites

New: 25 Point Plan for Improving Government IT Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, Dec 2010

http://www.cio.gov/modules/itreform/

“Successful organizations using modular development base releases on requirements they define at a high level and then refine through an iterative process, with extensive engagement and feedback from stakeholders.

To maintain the discipline of on-time and on-budget, organizations push out additional functionality and new requirements for major changes into future releases and prioritize critical needs and end-user functionality.”

New: 25 Point Plan for Improving Government IT

“Evidence shows that modular development leads to increased success and reduced risk. …

Many existing government processes – from planning to budgeting to procurement – naturally favor larger, more comprehensive projects.

As such, far too many Federal IT programs have multi-year timeframes well beyond the now accepted 18- to 24-month best practice. …

Moving forward, Federal IT programs must be structured to deploy working business functionality in release cycles no longer than 12 months, and, ideally, less than six months, with initial deployment to end users no later than 18 months after the program begins.”

Introducing HCI to the USPTO

(Patent and Trademark Office)

Major Changes

User-centered design is driving the biggest, highest profile IT development projects.

Have created a new Usability and Design group within OCIO; completed 3 hires.

In the process of changing the official IT development process to: Require user-centered requirements gathering Require usability as a criteria for software acceptance

Patents End-to-End IT

A new IT system being designed with the Patents Corps for the Patents Corps.

Doing the following in parallel:

New SoftwareArchitecture

User Researchdesign IT right

Process Reengineering

June ‘10 Jul-Sep ‘10 Oct-Jan ‘11

Business Goals:Survey (online or paper)

Tasks Analysis:Interviews, FocusGroups, and Online Input

Iterative TestingOf Mocked-up InterfacesInterviews, Focus Groups, and Online Input

First Phase Timeline

Design and Selection Process

Based on user research, wrote a SOW describing desired new functionality Bidders required to present an initial design This worked so well it is being repeated.

Three UI design firms were selected They refined their designs working with examiners

and managers, from Nov – Jan 14, 2011.

The entire Patent Corps was invited to evaluate these three designs online.

Design A

Design D

Design K

Evaluation Process

Each vendor made an external website with: A clickable prototype (not full functionality) Videos illustrating the functionality Feedback tool for commenting on specific features

USPTO made an internal website with: An overview introduction Links to each vendors’ landing page A survey for each vendor’s design A summary survey for ranking the designs

Evaluation Results

More than 2000 participants Designs A and D were tied in preference Overall scores were highly positive

The two winning vendors are now working together. An interesting sprint cycle process Designs are continually tested with end users, and

revised as needed. User stories and wireframes used as project

requirements.

Screenshots of new systems go here

Agile Development Process

Using Agile software development techniques with our new contractors

Front end design team develops user stories and wireframes

Front end development team designs service architecture and code with stubs for backend.

Backend team develops support for services. Requirements setting is a few weeks ahead of backend

development. Daily scrum meetings are held Periodic software releases are evaluated by front end

team with real users. Frequent software releases to production.

How you can Help:Research Topics

Research Questions:Online DiscussionsHow to compile and summarize responsesHow to engage appropriate stakeholders?How to moderate?How to debate topics?How to incorporate new entrants?What are the types of conversations?Are they valuable or not?What role should they play in decision

making?How to evaluate and assess?

Research Questions:Social Media

How to establish policies?How to balance providing official

information with being conversational and responsive? What are the goals of this kind of

communication? How to achieve them?

How to handle archiving rules?

Research Area:Information Visualization

Design guidelines for information dashboards

Automating tools for information mashups

Research Area:Web Site Design

Parallels between Government Agencies and Universities, as reflected in their web sites Archive vs. Curate? Unique Content vs. Administrative Structure?

Wide ranging audiences for research contentEspecially for scientific agencies

Research Questions:Web Site Design

Why is it so difficult and expensive? Is there a turn-key solution for all but the

content?

How to automate Some of the design process? Some of the usability testing process? Updating sites with stale designs?

How to Get Involved

Become a Presidential Technology FellowA brand new program!

Started Fall 2011 Part of the 25 Point Plan to Improve IT

http://www.cio.gov/techfellows/ 2 year paid fellowship Rotate among agencies

Builds on the highly successful Presidential Management Fellows program

Trains leaders for Federal Government Service Usually a terrific cohort

Must apply in the Fall before you graduate with a masters or PhD

But very few opportunities for non-US citizens

Work for an Agency Director

This is what I did! Not easy to find a way in, but contact federal CIO if

interested.

Participate in Government Dialogues

Example: The National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites

Images from discussion tools and social media

Convert Your Knowledge into Easily Digestible How-To’s

Independent non-profits, bloggers, university groups can have real impact.

They do this work on their own initiative.

Examples: Technology developed by OMB Watch for fedspending.org used in

relaunch of USASpending. Sunlight Foundation compiled lists of strategies for govt to address the

OGD. UC Berkeley iSchool faculty posted guidelines on how to improve the

design of recovery.gov; had a big influence. Open gov how-to workshops and websites. Federal Register annotation tools.

Sample Useful How-To on Social Media Usage(from EPA)

Participate with Classwork

Example Idea: Usability Clinic Professors teaching usability courses

Have their students critique a web site as a homework exercise

Commit to a particular time period Organizations sign up for the clinic

Govt, non-profits, small businesses May turn into longer-term projects

Think it’s a good idea? Organize it!

Participate with Data Analysis

Build tools that use govt data Expose inefficiencies Create new, useful functions

Example: Analyze hiring latency on a per-agency basis Data isn’t there?

Comment on agency’s opengov websites Ask for time-to-hire data for each agency Be persistent if necessary

Participate by Answering Requests for Comment Example:

OSTP Request for Comments Federal Register, May 21, 2009

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2009/05/opengov.pdf Also on the OSTP blog

Sought advice on Open Government topics: What alternative models exist to improve the quality of decision making

and increase opportunities for citizen participation?

What are the limitations to transparency?

What strategies might be employed to adopt greater use of Web 2.0 in agencies?

What policy impediments to innovation in government currently exist?

What performance measures are necessary to determine the effectiveness of open government policies?

Summary: How to Be InvolvedJoin in on the government conversations.Make and teach practical guidelines.Create clinicsHelp automate information design, organization,

linking, normalization.Mash up, visualize, and/or analyze the open

government data and then publish insightful findings.

Set up alerts on the Federal Register.Join the government (even temporarily)!