[Resources & Support] Tagging and searching iteration

[jilladams]

Top-line Description / Goal(s)

Business Case

Resources and support has expanded to include 137 articles (as of September 2024). As much as 50% of the content from the Benefit Hubs is expected to be moved into Resources and Support as part of that streamlining effort. We expect the number of articles will continue to grow via the ongoing migration of content to VA.gov from legacy sites. Other major content areas are being evaluated, such as health education and materials for non-beneficiary audiences.

This anticipated growth accelerated the prioritization of this effort to ensure the experience adequately supports discoverability and Veteran understanding.

Initiative brief: https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/tree/master/products/resources-and-support/initiatives/2024-search-experience-enhancements-Phase-1

Problems to solve - copied from the Initiative brief on 10/11/24:

Current Veteran experience

• The Resources and Support search component is custom built and allows the Veteran to search resources and support articles or all of VA.gov
• "Tags" for benefit category, topic, and Audience might appear on articles but aren't part of the search experience - search results cannot be filtered or sorted.
• The landing page does not adequately support browsing - topic lists are incomplete and organized by benefit hub, rather than based on Veteran mental models
• The experience contains a number of accessibility defects, as discovered by an audit performed in May 2024

Current Drupal editorial experience

• Tags representing topic and/or audience group (i.e. beneficiary or non-beneficiary) are not required.
• Options for topic tags are not comprehensive
• Methods to organize content and support findability rely on manual editorial processes, making them inconsistent and/or absent.

Scope

In scope

Phase 1 focus

• addressing accessibility defects - either through design iteration or engineering implementation
• increasing findability
  • search improvements
  • taxonomy enhancements to support functional tagging and which can be extended to other parts of the VA.gov experience
• landing page redesign
• detail page template improvements
• ensuring no silent failures

Product documentation

• Existing product docs: https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/tree/master/products/resources-and-support

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High level work required to complete the epic

• [ ] Analytics review
• [ ] Backlog review
• [ ] Content audit
• [x] Design - Amanda K completed design during Q3 2024, no tracking ticket
• [x] Usability research
• [ ] Drupal -- may be required in a separate epic, to complete implementation
  • [ ] New config, fields, or entities
  • [ ] Revisions to existing config, fields, or entities
  • [ ] Editor Change management is required in either case
  • [ ] Knowledge Base article creation or updates are required in either case
• [ ] Vets-api (Ruby)
  • [ ] New API or endpoints
  • [ ] Revisions to existing API / endpoints
• [ ] Content-build (FE) -- may be required in a separate epic, to complete implementation
  • [ ] New templates
  • [x] Revisions to existing templates -- may be required in a separate epic, to complete implementation
• [ ] Next-build (FE)
  • [ ] New template(s)
  • [x] Migration of existing content-build template(s) -- may be required in a separate epic, to complete implementation
  • [ ] Revisions to existing Next templates
• [ ] Vets-website (FE)
  • [ ] New React app or widget
  • [?] Revisions to existing apps, widgets, or templates
• [x] Collab Cycle - required for any new application, usability research, major architectural change to an existing product. If you're not sure, ask Governance team.

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Monthly project updates:

Decision log

• [2024-10-1] Research for this effort is a 2024 Q4 priority

[jilladams]

Amanda K did design for this initiative, and considered Accessibility findings for R&S from https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-cms/issues/17365 while updating designs.