Initiative - Vet Center design 2.0

[mmiddaugh]

Background

The Vet Center page roll-out began in the summer of 2021 and completed in January 2023. Because Vet Centers had no online presence prior to this roll-out, establishing a lean MVP design for all locations was the first priority, despite a known need for expanded features, particularly event functionality. For a variety of reasons, we've been unable to return to this design until now.

• Initiative brief

Problems to solve

It is not expected that the redesign will solve all of the following

There is a desire for their pages to be visually distinct from VAMC pages (#17893)

- Although Vet Centers are under VHA, they have a distinct identity as a warm, welcoming, nonclinical front door to the VA where Veterans, service members, and their families can access mental health counseling and other services. - Photos are commonly requested as a method of storytelling and as a way to convey the difference in the services and activities available. - RCS has asked for consideration of the brand colors and logo, based on their research and brand analysis process which focused on the representation of the services they offer, the clients they serve, and their staff, who are often Veterans themselves. One goal is to overcome common misconceptions, including the frequently expressed thought that Vet Centers are VA medical centers or veterinary clinics.

Satellite locations should be discoverable in their own right (#17693)

- How might we support expansion of these pages (i.e. support for other location types)? Only Vet Centers have pages and associated services. Other locations where services are available are included on the Locations page for the parent Vet Center. Some satellite locations are very similar in maturity to a full Vet Center and may have dedicated staff, daily hours and a full suite of services. Without their own page, they can be difficult to discover because Veterans do not know to search for these locations in the context of a main Vet Center. - Related: It may be desirable to make the link to the locations page more prominent during this work. The link to "View more [name] Vet Center locations" is currently below the Location and contact information and is displayed in normal text which may blend in with surrounding content. - Is the MVP approach to organization of services working?

Veterans need an easy online way to express interest in Vet Center services (#17541)

- Vet Centers are implementing Salesforce as a platform for managing outreach activities. This implementation will include a digital intake form for the contact information of a prospective client which can be routed to the appropriate Vet Center for follow-up. The form will use the same URL, regardless of where it is initiated or routed so we should be able to easily point to it from the Vet Center pages. (#17541)

Design needs to support the addition of event functionality - where will it live within context of existing pages? (#12926)

- Vet Center pages have no left nav menu. How might we make events discoverable on these pages? - Vet Center editors may use events very differently than VAMC editors. - Imagine events for all facility types are tagged to make filtering possible. What is the Veteran experience? How might a Veteran or other audience search for the events they are interested in? How might they learn more about a particular event?

Scope of Design 2.0

updated 4/16/2024

• Look/feel distinct from VAMC pages (#17893)
• IA/secondary navigation to support individual pages for Satellite locations ( #17195)
  • Increased visibility of link to Locations page
• IA/secondary navigation to support discoverability for events (#17195)
• Prominent link to Salesforce intake form
• Implementation of reusable Q/A,if possible

Not in Scope for Design 2.0

updated 4/16/2024

• Event design/enhancements (owned by PW)
• Integration with Salesforce platform
• Reorganization of services
• Multiple photos
• CLP content
• Other suggestions in the Vet Center enhancement epic

Related

• Reusable Q&As on Vet Centers #15157
• A CLP is planned to replace legacy high level Vet Center pages and we may need to connect the dots between facility pages and main RCS presence
• [CONSIDER] Multiple photos per Vet Center location #33945 -- punted from Q2
• [CONSIDER] Vet Center service accordion design iteration #13940

Resources

• Product brief
• Vet Center analytics
• Research README
• Library of Vet Center photos

Logo

[aklausmeier]

@thejordanwood FYI

[jilladams]

@davidmpickett @thejordanwood Would like to hand this epic to the 2 of you to run with in UX syncs / asyncs, to get started thinking about UX ticketing / how to break out the work in order to make progress on it this quarter. Holler if you'd like to discuss, this might be a good UX scrum topic for tomorrow.

[davidmpickett]

@mmiddaugh From a product standpoint are these these enhancements stack ranked in priority? 1) Visual differentiation from VAMC pages 2) Satellite locations - services & discoverability 3) Salesforce integration 4) Events 5) Items listed under Related

And have you reviewed the Vet Center enhancement epic recently to make sure nothing else from that should be under consideration here?

[davidmpickett]

Notes from UX scrum today:

• @laflannery already had an accessibility audit ticket ready to go, she's going to pull that into Sprint 1. Any accessibility issues that are discovered can be added to this epic so they are addressed by new design
• @thejordanwood has this discovery ticket in Sprint 1, originially was focused on just Events, but given the length of this sprint, she may end up taking a broader view and looking at some of the other considerations for Vet Centers 2.0

[jilladams]

Re: https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-cms/issues/17661#issuecomment-2030516230 From product sync:

• @thejordanwood research / discovery should help inform Product determination re: which are the most important changes for Vet Centers and we include
• Not all items from Related (in ticket body) are inherently in scope here

[mmiddaugh]

re: #17661 comment A few edits to your summary:

• "Salesforce integration" is limited to the connection to the digital intake form
• Navigation to support the new features/enhancements is part of this work
• Outside of the items called out in this issue, suggestions in the Vet Center enhancement epic are not considered in scope unless the business need is clearly established and Jordan/Amanda/engineers indicate they are practical. Likewise, the prioritization of proposed enhancements will be informed by Jordan's discovery and engineering input.

[mmiddaugh]

Please see this comment related to the scope for Vet Center events for this redesign

[mmiddaugh]

The work to support multiple photos has been deprioritized given the need to devote capacity to aligning with USWDS. I'm removing multiple images as part of this initiative as well, unless it makes sense to consider how they might be incorporated in the future. @aklausmeier @thejordanwood @davidmpickett FYI

[mmiddaugh]

Update 4.22.2024 Discovery complete

[aklausmeier]

@thejordanwood These designs will need to accommodate the new design system breakpoint of 640px.

[mmiddaugh]

Update 6.7.2024

• Design underway
• Event functionality dependent on AP

[mmiddaugh]

Update 7.16.2024

• Design pending RCS feedback
• Event functionality dependent on AP

[mmiddaugh]

Update 8.8.24

Drupal work initiated, stakeholder input received

[jilladams]

For my own sake:	Feature	Drupal ticket	FE ticket
Mission Explainer	#18723	#18724
Banner	#18924	#18925
Banner image	#18709	#18711

[mmiddaugh]

Update 9.3.2024

• AP progress influences our decision to begin delivering Veteran value iteratively
• Initial changes will be visual enhancements, including a banner image and new "mission explainer" box designed to support differentiation compared to VA health facilities