United States Digital Service – Vets.gov

Ask a Librarian Info Graphic

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As UX Lead at the Digital Service at Veterans Affairs team, I oversee the user research, content, and design for a portfolio of over 30 products on Vets.gov. ​


HathiTrust Digital Library

​HathiTrust is a multi-institutional repository of digitized materials that provides access to over 13 million book & journal volumes to over 8 million users/year. 
  • Managed user research activities (usability testing, secondary research, usage stats analysis, etc).
  • Directed design.
  • Designed barrier-free access for users with print disabilities & launched accessibility design/coding initiative.
  • Collaborated with 20+ partner institutions.


​User Experience in the Library

In 2010, I identified a need for the University of Michigan Library to dedicate more resources to the design and usability of the hundreds of websites and access systems developed in-house. I advocated for – and then launched – a new User Experience Department.
  • Established department and developed departmental mission.
  • Managed overall vision, strategies, and tasks for department projects.
  • Consulted with other libraries interested in creating a UX program.
  • Trained library staff on user-focused strategies and advocated for data-driven decisions.


Project Strategy

The U-M Library does a great deal of in-house development and supports hundreds of websites and other digital assets. I introduced new project strategies to guide, better structure, ensure a holistic and user-centered focus to projects, and improve communication. For example:
  • Guiding Principles statement to establish a new philosophy.
  • Project charters to help identify stakeholders, problem statement, scope, goals, timeline, etc.
  • Project prioritization to weigh effort and impact and weighted goal matrices to compare project ideas to goals.
  • Project debrief process to assess how well project was executed and where improvements can be made to processes.
  • Project intake workflows and quality assurance guidelines.


Illinois Library Website – Content Strategy
The University of Illinois Library website is a large legacy site that developed organically over many years with thousands of pages of content written by hundreds of people. As part of the effort to move to a new platform, redesign, and develop new content, I established a new UX program with a set of resources to support the migration process. 
  • Led website vision, design, information architecture, content strategy, user research, and assessment activities.
  • Developed content style guide and audit rubric to help content authors and subject matter experts assess (and cull) their current content and learn the new guidelines.
  • Performed project strategy duties to drive functionality, goals, requirements, priorities, and communication between developers, users, and internal stakeholders.


Michigan Library Website – Content Strategy & Design

During the discovery phase of the University of Michigan Library's website redesign project, I took a close look at the thousands of pages of content and discovered some major improvements were needed. 
  • Led effort to shift content creation to be less distributed and to focus more on user needs.
  • Managed the retirement of over 1,200 unnecessary, outdated, or redundant pages.
  • Advocated for the creation of a new Web Content Strategist position; supervised the creation of new policies, workflows, and quality standards; supervised the activities to retire additional unnecessary pages, improve high-value content and create new content to address gaps.
  • Established a new Web Content Coordinator role within each of the 8 library divisions and co-managed this group.


Blog Platform

The University of Michigan Library Blog platform was developed to bring previously distributed blogging activity by library staff into one unified space. This would also allow certain kinds of content to move out of the website proper so the website could focus on core content.
  • Directed design.
  • Co-created policies, workflows, training requirements, and best practices.


Analysis of Home Page Real Estate vs. Usage

To prepare for a home page design "refresh," I instigated an analysis to compare the amount of space we were using for certain elements to the amount of clicks those areas received. The results of this study helped me advocate for using space to emphasize high impact content. 

Results of the refresh increased clicks in the redesigned area by about 400%!


User Interviews & Observations 

Prior to launching a full website redesign for the U-M Library website, I wanted to conduct some qualitative user research to help inform the design and problem-solving process. As chair of the Usability Group, I led two studies to better understand how novice and experienced users interact with the library website, what services they value, and what they find challenging. Experienced users were interviewed and asked to walk us through their process while novice users were observed remotely.


Undergraduate Student "Photo booth"

The U-M Library Undergraduate Library holds a very popular event each fall to welcome new students and welcome back returning students. I decided to use this opportunity to provide a fun activity for the students, capture their energy and enthusiasm, while also gathering a little information, in the students own words, about what they value in a library. Results helped paint a picture of students' interests ranging from digital access to physical spaces and actual books.

Students were given a piece of card stock emblazoned with “My ideal library… ______ ” and were then asked to fill in the blank and pose for a photograph with it.

Photos available for: 2012, 2011, 2010.


MLibrary Mobile

The U-M Library's mobile interface was launched around 2010 and, because of limited resources, was designed to focus on high use content for the mobile context. As the website is redesigned it is being upgraded to a responsive design.

  • Designed interface.
  • Managed development.
  • Designed promotional advertisement and campaign.