mcommons10
commented
1 month ago Just wanted to call out that this project includes mobile app work and designs.
Open mcommons10 opened 1 month ago
mcommons10
commented
1 month ago Just wanted to call out that this project includes mobile app work and designs.
humancompanion-usds
commented
1 month ago PO Sync happened on Tuesday 10/1. Good discussion on how this team might determine if the status card is being accepted as well as the path to replace the VIC.
rtwell
commented
1 month ago Reviewing the problem statements from the product outline, I did want to bring up some points that would be great to clarify:
Problem statement:
- The web and mobile app experiences are not aligned (they have different homes in each experience and look very different)
- It is not an industry standard experience (think airline tickets, event tickets, insurance cards, etc.)
mcommons10
commented
1 month ago Great questions @rtwell. Here are my thoughts:
In regards to web and mobile alignment:
In regards to industry standard experience:
rtwell
commented
1 month ago thanks for the follow up @mcommons10
On the mobile app, vet status is very easy to find as it lives on the homepage and is also at the top of the profile page. This is not the case on web. On web it lives at the bottom of the /military-information page and we believe this makes it hard for users to find and access (in August there were ~533k views for vet status in the mobile app and ~13k views on the web).
is this because users can't find it or because most users don't go to a website for this sort of thing? just because web has fewer views than the app doesn't mean it isn't findable…it might mean the modality isn't a good fit (eg not only do users have to jump through the hoops of signing in, then they have to download, print, remember to take it with them. The app is always there and VS is just a tap or two away.) The appointments space is another good example: historically there are far fewer appointments in the month of December, which could be perceived as a problem because a number is going down, but the reality is its the holidays and people tend to not book as many appointments (and ideally are also getting healthier). given that, fewer views simply does not conclusively mean "this is not working". So, how do we plan on knowing what we're doing is meeting needs? I wonder if there is some research that needs to happen here. just my 2¢.
On the mobile app, vet status is a page, on web it is in an actual card format. We want to align on a card format across experiences so it can be consistent and businesses who are validating users’ vet status have a single card/design/pattern to reference whether it is being used from the mobile app, the web, or a printed version.
This still sounds hypothetical to me—do we know that this is a problem? the app has been active for ~4 years with a lot of differences between web and we have yet to hear feedback that these differences were a problem (a user was trying to complete some kind of task, but couldn't). While I'm all for consistency and continuity, I think these should be coupled with known user problems so we have a framework to operate. and again I would like to emphasis how we measure the success of these adjustments?. To my knowledge, we don't know if this actually works in retail stores (in either of its current forms), so what baseline are we starting with to measure these improvements? Side note (as you will hear in Design Intent) — our rationale of not using the card as a card in the app was twofold: legibility and accessibility. when people are standing an arms length or more away from each other, when you hold a phone out for someone to read, the type has to be large enough to read from a distance. Additionally, users both on web and mobile can set their default text size to be quite large, so elements have to reflow and stack as needed. The restrictions of a card shape do not allow either of those things to happen.
mcommons10
commented
1 month ago @rtwell - It is clear that mobile is doing something right based on the traffic numbers and I agree that less views on web doesn't mean there is a problem. One of our hypotheses is that the mobile placement/IA is driving find-ability. This assumption is supported by our current data. We would like to test a similar pattern on web to see if we can improve our current baseline.
If Vet Status ends up replacing the VIC (which is an active conversation cc: @JeffBarnesUSDS), not having it available on all platforms would be a blocker to adoption.
Our hypothesis is that Vet Status is missing standardizations that are preventing a unified cross platform digital experience. They are the same product but as a user we want to test if that is intuitively understood. This is not to say that the web and mobile experiences should be identical, but they should be related and complimentary.
Thanks for the note about the mobile app card design. Exactly the type of feedback we were hoping from the Design Intent.
rtwell
commented
1 month ago @mcommons10 It would be helpful to define what a "unified cross platform digital experience" means and for the team to propose how they plan to measure the efficacy of this.
If Vet Status ends up replacing the VIC (which is an active conversation cc: @JeffBarnesUSDS), not having it available on all platforms would be a blocker to adoption.
I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be across platforms. Can you please clarify?
mcommons10
commented
1 month ago @rtwell In my mind a unified cross platform digital experience = to the extent possible, common IA, design and UX patterns; however, this is a broader VA wide convo I'd like to involve Jeff in. It's my understanding that building that cohesion is the reason for working towards Experience Teams. Right now web and mobile act different, look different, and live in different places.
I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be across platforms. Can you please clarify?
Wanted to call that out specifically since there could reasoning to say mobile gets 40x more views and isn't worth continuing to build out on web.
strelichl
commented
2 weeks ago Hi @mcommons10, I’m the PM for CAIA. Our OCTO PO flagged this work as something we should provide content and IA support on, especially when you’re ready to make updates to the Veteran ID card web page (I’ve created a CAIA intake ticket to track work on our end). Please let me know if you have a timeline yet for starting on web changes.
mcommons10
commented
2 weeks ago Thanks @strelichl! We actually had a ticket next sprint to submit an intake ticket - glad we're on the same page. We do have some specific things we are wanting content help with. We'll keep you posted next week once we finish a few things on our end.
cc: @DavidPearlUX
Please view the Milestone for all feedback and findings tickets associated with this Collaboration Cycle initiative.
VFS product information
VFS team name
Iterate, Innovate & Run
Product name
Veteran Status Card
Feature name
New Home & User Experience
GitHub label for team
va-iir
GitHub label for product
veteran-status
GitHub label for feature
No response
Public DSVA Slack channel for VFS team
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### When did/will you start working on this product/feature? August 2024 ### Will your work result in visible changes to the user experience? Yes ### Are you doing research with VA.gov users? Yes ### Will your work involve changes to... Tools, applications and dynamic pages ### Does your product/feature have Google Analytics tracking and a KPI dashboard in Domo? Unsure ### Do you need to capture any additional analytics or metrics? Yes ### Will a VA editor (Drupal) notice this change? No ### Product outline https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/blob/master/products/veteran-status/v2-IIR/new-home-and-ux-product-outline.md ### Verify all relevant materials provided to Governance Team - [X] I have provided all relevant and up-to-date links, screenshots, images, designs, etc. of the as-is version of the product ### Add the GitHub labels for your team, product, and feature to this ticket. - [X] I acknowledge that I must add the GitHub labels for my team, product, and feature to this ticket. Kickoff Slack Thread with VFS team: [Kickoff thread](https://dsva.slack.com/archives/C05RJS5DANT/p1726772832990199)Recommended Collaboration Cycle touchpoints
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