This is a toolkit designed to help Department of Homeland Security teams conduct usability testing for digital services, with templates, guidance, and best practices.
Testing (and re-testing) your designs with users will help you build the best possible product. Our Validate Methods cover varied testing scenarios and potential user groups.
The Better Government Lab at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University has developed a new scale for measuring the experience of burden when accessing public benefits. They offer both a three-item scale and a single-item scale, which can be utilized for any public benefit program. The shorter scales provide a less burdensome way to measure by requiring less information from users.
The Decide Methods help you derive insights from the information gathered during the Discovery phase. You’ll validate initial assumptions, develop a deeper understanding of workflows and processes, and develop design hypotheses.
The Benefits Enrollment Field Guide looks at the landscape of America’s safety net benefits experience in 2023 and tracks the differences from our 2019 assessment based on expanded evaluation criteria. It also highlights successful paths to equitable, human-centered experiences. It examines online enrollment for Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), and WIC.
This book is an in-depth exploration of federal programs and controversial legislation demonstrating that administrative burden has long existed in policy design, preventing citizens from accessing fundamental rights. Further discussion of how policymakers can minimize administrative burden to reduce inequality, boost civic engagement, and build an efficient state.
The Building Human-Centered Benefits Renewal Processes with Client Equity in Mind article by Code for America discusses the implementation of ex parte renewals in Minnesota's Medicaid program to streamline benefit renewals for aged, blind, and disabled populations, reducing administrative burdens and enhancing equity.
This Blueprint is a whole-of-government effort that aims to provide a resource to assist federal decisionmakers in leveraging social and behavioral science to improve policy and program design and delivery.
Code for America explores the systems at play and the individuals experience of participants in WIC. By investigating overall quantitative trends in coverage, redemption, and retention rates, they use the data as a guide to build out a qualitative research plan that explains why such trends are occurring.