Old legacy systems, content-heavy sites, and a formidable lack of web standards make interacting with government sites frustrating.

But how can we interact with them if we can’t get into them in the first place?

CHALLENGE

Up until 2018, account and password issues consistently comprised nearly 50% of Help Desk tickets for an internal U.S. government system that manages training and certifications for over 250,000 government employees.

ROLE

In collaboration with Help Desk, Program, and Development teams, I spearheaded the research and UX efforts.

SOLUTION

Through qualitative feedback insights and usability best practices, we rethought and redesigned the way users are being asked to reset their password by taking out the frustration and guesswork out up front.

Within three months of deployment, help desk ticket count for account and password-related items went down from 49% to 21% and the trend is continuing through 2019.

Let’s put ourselves in the user’s shoes.

We are federal government employees that hold certifications as it relates to our acquisition-related career fields. We use an internal application to enroll in training courses so that we may maintain those certifications to stay up-to-date and effective.

Enter stage left: FAITAS. The training application system that sometimes gets called ‘fajitas.’ Tacos, anyone?

There are over 250,000 of us. And we use FAITAS for a wide gamut of tasks from enrolling in classes like FAR Fundamentals and Contract Planning to managing our warrants for million-dollar procurement budgets.

If we’re in leadership positions, we log into the system almost everyday as we manage employees and it’s our responsibility to approve their requests. Other folks might log in few times a month to check on where things are at during the approval process, but the majority of us log into FAITAS maybe one or twice a year.

If we’re ahead of the game, we know to update our password every 90 days. We get numerous emails reminding us to do so, but really, who has time for that? We have meetings to prepare for.

The day finally arrives where there’s no way out. We HAVE to log into FAITAS. We knew it was coming. If we don’t, we’ll miss the enrollment deadline and if we don’t take the courses required, we’ll lose our certification and if we aren’t certified we can’t lawfully perform our duties ….

Shoot - where did I put that Post-It note with my password? Is it in a drawer somewhere? Maybe a manila folder? I saw it somewhere….

Well, crap.

Okay. Don’t freak out. Maybe there’s another way to enter? This could work. Let’s see what happens when we click ‘Forgot Password.’

Hm. Did my parents meet in Durham or Greensboro? Should I call Mom? Ah, then I’ll be on the phone for an hour. “Yes, mom, the kids are eating well, don’t worry. Yes, Natalie is still playing soccer. I know. You wanted her to play the violin…”

Well, great. Now I’m locked out. But at least I get this large paragraph of text:

“If you are unable to verify your identity using the online Password Reset process, please call the FAITAS Help Desk at (703) 752-9604 between the hours of 7:30 AM – 5:30 PM Eastern Time, Monday - Friday. The FAI CSS Team is required to verify your PII (Personally Identifiable Information), by phone, to verify account ownership. Please do not send any PII via email or Help Desk ticket.”

…. what.

Okay, fine. Let’s see if there’s a human on the other side of this line.

“Can you please confirm your government-issued e-mail address?”

“Sure. It is ….”

“Can you confirm your SSN?”

“Okay, here it is….”

“No sorry, your full SSN.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, that is correct. We need to confirm all digits due to privacy regulations.”

“Ugh. Is this safe?”

“And your date of birth?”

“Are you still there?”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

That’s a lot of unnecessary frustration and time lost that directly impacts employee productivity and ultimately impacts taxpayer dollars.

Let’s start by uncovering some problem areas through qualitative research.

Who are the real people behind the tickets?

I looked up the job descriptions for some of these roles and here are a few that stood out:

• Acquisition Program Analyst, Office of the Secretary of Transportation

• Acquisition Program Manager, U.S. Air Force

• Learning Director, Defense Acquisition Management

• General Engineer, U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center

• Customer Liaison Director, General Services Administration

• Contracts Specialist, General Services Administration

• Computer Scientist, U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center

Personas

Interviews

Discovery

• Tell me a little about your role

• What does your typical workday look like?

• When do you normally first use the internet in a typical day?

• What are some of the sites you visit the most to perform your job?

Contextual

• How often do you log into FAITAS?

• What is your relationship like with FAITAS?

• Tell me a little about how you log into the system

• How much time do you typically spend in the system?

• What kind of tasks do you perform?

Usability

• What do you think of the password reset process?

• Have you ever had any issues getting into the system? Follow up: Tell me a little bit more about that experience

• Would you recommend this page to a friend?

• How does it compare to another page?

• If ‘Update Account’ was a car, what car would it be?

• If you were to give this page a score from 0-10, what would it be?

• What feature could you not live without?

• How can we improve?

FAITAS Help Desk Interviews

Before I ran off to make wireframes, I interviewed the Development Lead on what is and what is not feasible:

“Ok, we can remove the Privacy Act.”

“Ok, not necessary to update email at the same time as password update. We can allow them to focus, I understand why it’s confusing.”

“Security consultant demanded we separate the two blocks … but I don’t remember why.”

“Security questions materialized because someone logged into someone’s old account.”

“Ok to add a happy confirmation page ‘You’ve got 90 days until you have to reset your password.’”

Remember this page?

Updating passwords doesn’t have to induce paralyzing doubt and frustration

• Let’s be clear about what we’re asking users to accomplish. If the task is to update their password, let’s label the page exactly that - “Update Password.” Remember the Unix Philosophy? Do one thing and do that one thing well.

• Remove long Privacy Notice that no one is reading. We already show that when they first create their account.

• "Old Password" label is confusing. Old in relation to when? A light copy change to "Current Password” will increase clarity and mitigate state confusion.

• Award user when they enter correct current password with a green check mark.

• Remove field for e-mail address. No relation to task being performed. Create separate place for e-mail.

• Find a different way for users to interact with password parameters instead of typical “read the directions.”

• Allow users to hide and unhide password so they can see what they are typing.

• Apply Principles of Gamification to let the user feel like they are progressing.

• Show this error message after user is done filling out the field, not before and certainly not while they’re typing.

• Once user successfully enters all parameters, the 'Update Password' button becomes active.

Account Enhancement Projects That Followed …

Public-Facing Portal Experience

Account Validation

Creating a Profile

Security Questions