COVID-19 Response
The COVID-19 pandemic drove record numbers of users to CDC.gov. From January to May of 2020, the site saw a 2109% increase in page views. The urgency of the situation made user experience and data driven design more important than ever. The CDC UX team was able to experiment and iterate like never before.
More data, fewer problems
Starting early in the response, I worked with the CDC metrics team to develop daily and weekly metrics reports. We monitored the COVID-19 website and other key content to identify problems and forecast upcoming topics. Our team had the ability to rapidly iterate and test things on the live website.
Our metrics reports included:
Top pages and page view trends from week to week
Click data for COVID homepage and high priority pages
External search terms, CTR, and top page users clicked on
Trends for grouped search terms
Depending on current events, we monitored key pages. Eventually our metrics report expanded into two reports. The original for all COVID content and one for vaccine specific content. The release of a COVID vaccine led to another spike in traffic which overshadowed the general content. Two reports let us keep granular views of everything.
Learn more
Excerpt from weekly metrics report.
COVID Data Tracker home page with updated view to show new data, trends, and total data for the United States.
More data, fewer problems
Starting early in the response, I worked with the CDC metrics team to develop daily and weekly metrics reports. We monitored the COVID-19 website and other key content to identify problems and forecast upcoming topics. Our team had the ability to rapidly iterate and test things on the live website.
Our metrics reports included:
Top pages and page view trends from week to week
Click data for COVID homepage and high priority pages
External search terms, CTR, and top page users clicked on
Trends for grouped search terms
Depending on current events, we monitored key pages. Eventually our metrics report expanded into two reports. The original for all COVID content and one for vaccine specific content. The release of a COVID vaccine led to another spike in traffic which overshadowed the general content. Two reports let us keep granular views of everything.
Validating the design
After sharing my design with the White House COVID-19 Response Data Team, we created a prototype for user testing. I tested usability with 16 users on both mobile and desktop. Key findings include:
Users found the page easy to navigate and less overwhelming.
Clear headings indicated whether they were viewing national or specific local data.
They also liked the in-page navigation with anchor links and connections to other sections.