Authors and project pages
This release is focused on helping users find information that exists on our website, and revising or creating new content to meet the needs of federal employees looking to work with 18F.
Content
Problem
People using 18f.gsa.gov want to learn what we do. Apart from a few disparate blog posts, we don't do a great job of helping our users accomplish that goal — in some cases the content was misleading.
What we did
- Based on feedback that the old hero image was leading people to think we were part of the National Park Service, or worked with children, we created a hero graphic featuring the FEC project. Rather than a graphic or photo about the project, this is a graphic that embodies the project.
- After learning that the original design took users away from 18f.gsa.gov, and coupled with the need for examples of our projects, we created a project page for the FEC. The page is the same graphic from the hero, a brief introduction to the work, and an archive of blog posts. We chose FEC because we have written many blog posts about it and the work encompasses a wide range of 18F's capabilities.
- We plan to rotate the featured project on a regular basis and have already started designing the next project's graphic and planning the content for the page.
Chapter skills involved in this work
- Visual design
- Front end design
- Front end development
- Content design
Authors
Problem
The way we handled authorship and bylines was an inconsistent user experience that sometimes sent people away from 18f.gsa.gov.
What we did
-
To address the inconsistent user experience, and ensure we didn't lose users, we created an archive template and page for every author, regardless of their status on the 18F team. Previously, bylines would link to a team member profile for 18F team members. Other authors had one of three options: 1) the byline would link away from 18F to learn more about the author, 2) the user would be taken to a different page within 18f.gsa.gov that had nothing to do with the author, or 3) nothing. Option three was most common for non-team member authors. This problem would get worse over time as terms expired.
Author archives now roughly match the look of the chronological and tag archive pages with the author's name in the header, an indicator of whether they're a guest or alum, and then a list of blog posts with the title, excerpt, and (if listed) the preview image. Here's an example for a team member, a guest author, and an alum.
Chapter skills involved in this work
- Backend development
- Front end design
- Front end development
- Content design
Research
This sprint worked off the findings from the previous sprint. We are researching content and usability in every sprint. Our results are logged on our research branch.
In that research we discovered:
- We need more tangible examples of the work we've done for others.
- Users want to know more about what we do, and how they can get started.
- Links out of the site are confusing and getting back to home is difficult.
We are potentially losing users before they are done learning about us. This is especially problematic when taken to guides that explain how to work with us.
Other changes
- Delete a redundant data file (previously at
_data/authors.yml). We also fixed a bug that was causing some author archive pages to 404. - Switching to a version of a plugin 18F maintains in order to get more control over bug fixes.
- Updated documentation
Moving forward
Creating the project pages is a step in the direction of providing clear examples of our work. Research since this release has shown that our homepage content an imagery is working but our users still want examples of our work. We are working on identifying a range of projects that demonstrate the different ways federal partners can work with 18F.
Once our users know whether we can help them, they need to know how to get started. Going forward, we are taking a second look at the intake, partnerships playbook, and IAA guides to ensure their accuracy and eventually import them into the site. On top of the content design work, this will continue to require front end development and design support.
18F Team members involved with this release:
@coreycaitlin
@gemfarmer
@mugizico
@ericronne
@elainekamlley
@awfrancisco
Follow our work at 18F/18f.gsa.gov or in #18f-site on Slack. We'll also be doing a bug hunt on Black Friday. More updates next week: Same Bat time, same Bat channel.