Understanding change
The new CDC.gov was a once in a career chance to completely redesign such a large federal website. Implementing a strict, centrally managed design system was a radical idea. Subject matter experts and health communicators knew what they liked, which didn’t always align with best practices. My goal was to help people across the Agency adjust and understand how we got to the new design.
Strategy
The stakeholders, subject matter experts and some health communicators, were not familiar with writing for the web. Often, they knew what they liked and felt confident in those choices. This intensified the resistance to change when redesigning CDC.gov. These slides were intended to introduce these stakeholders to the concept of user experience.
Differences in approach
Our UX practice was very data driven. We used best practices, web metrics, and conducted usability testing. Despite this, we received pushback on our choices. My theory was that many SMEs didn’t perceive our work as based on research because it was “design.” I was very passionate about educating these stakeholders about user experience.
Usability testing
After the launch of the new CDC.gov, I oversaw usability testing to validate the design. After the quick introduction to UX design and research, I wanted to focus on the success of the design and opportunities to iterate.
Look and feel
Prior to the redesign, CDC.gov lacked a consistent visual design, to the point where sites had different color schemes.
Stakeholders were especially concerned with the amount of white space in the new design. I wanted to let them know we made this decision based on research and users appreciate the spacing.
Navigation
One of the biggest changes in the design was removing the left navigation. Our research showed only a fraction of users navigated via the left navigation, presumably those users were CDC employees. Instead of retaining this difficult to maintain element, we removed it in favor of a more complex navigation.
I wanted to explain our approach and the research that led to those decisions.