[CAIA Intake] Benefits management tools: Evidence Submission Status

[uxgary]

Content, accessibility, information architecture (CAIA) new initiative collaboration request

Use this ticket to request collaboration on a new initiative with the sitewide content, accessibility, and information architecture (CAIA) shared services team. Feel free to delete instructions and unselected options from the ticket to make it easier to scan.

Your team

• Product name: Claim status tool
• Team name: Benefits management tools - team 1
• OCTO product owner: @amylai-va
• Product manager: @jacobworrell
• Designer(s): @uxgary cc: @skylerschain
• Slack channel: #benefits-management-tools
• Dedicated content writer on your team (if you have one): @laurwill
• Dedicated a11y specialist on your team (if you have one): @davidakennedy

CAIA specialists involved

Filled out by CAIA

• IA:
• Content:
• Accessibility:

Your Initiative

Which of these descriptions best fits the work we’ll partner on?

Select all that apply.

• [ ] Digitizing a new form
• [ ] Creating a new digital tool
• [X] Updating an existing form or tool
• [ ] Translating a form or tool into Spanish
• [ ] Adding new unauthenticated content to VA.gov
• [ ] Updating existing unauthenticated content on VA.gov
• [ ] Something else:

What's the nature of your initiative and desired outcomes?

link to initiative brief

Silent Failure occurs when a Veteran submits a form or evidence, but it fails to reach downstream services or owners of record. When the submission fails, the Veteran isn’t notified of this problem. This lack of real-time updates creates confusion, delays corrective action, increases support inquiries, and can lead to repeated failed attempts.

Our designs aim to provide Veterans with real-time transparency into the status of their evidence submissions (e.g., "Pending," "Received," "Failed"). We believe this visibility will reduce anxiety, while clear, actionable feedback on failures will boost Veterans' confidence in the process and enable immediate resolution. This approach is also expected to reduce support inquiries for CST.

As part of this work, we’ve added new alert messages to keep Veterans informed with status updates. Additionally, we’ve created a page offering Veterans alternative options for manually submitting files to the VA in case of system failures. We need CAIA’s support with content edits for these new additions.

Supporting artifacts

Provide links to any supporting artifacts that can help us better understand your initiative and begin collaboration. Include artifacts like your product outline, user flows, mockups and prototypes, or any draft content. FOR FIGMA/MURAL: please tell us which screens/board/section to look at so we don't leave comments on old stuff.

• Figma mockups

Collaboration timeframe

Note: We work on nearly every OCTO product and manage all unauthenticated content on VA.gov, so we will need to prioritize intake requests based on overall workload and VA and OCTO priorities.

Is this work tied to a Congressional mandate, change in law or policy, or upcoming event with a specific deadline?

• [ ] Yes
• [X] No
• [ ] I’m not sure

Where are you at in your timeline?

Tell us briefly about what you're working on now (such as initial discovery, wire framing, or usability research planning) and add any known dates for upcoming milestones or deadlines.

We're in the usability research planning phase. Our current sprint ends on Dec 3rd and we are working on an interactive prototype for research study. If possible, we would like to have the content revised by then. But we don't have any firm dates.

Will you release this new product incrementally (for example, release to 25% of users to start)?

• [X] Yes

• [ ] No

  Note: For an incremental launch, we use React widgets to display dynamic content. We'll need at least 2 weeks of extra time to coordinate the content for this and work with your engineer. Learn more about our process for dynamic content. If your launch plans change, notify CAIA of the change as soon as possible so we can talk about how that will impact the timeline.

If you are releasing incrementally:

• What dates do you anticipate starting and ending your incremental launch? Enter dates
• What is the name of your engineer who will build the React widget? Name

Collaboration cycle

Which phases of the collaboration cycle have you completed?

Select all that apply.

• [X] Design intent
• [ ] Midpoint review
• [ ] Staging
• [ ] None. This initiative isn’t going through the collaboration cycle.

Collaboration cycle ticket

If you’re going through the collaboration cycle, provide a link to your Collaboration Cycle Request:

• Ticket Number: #96773

Next steps

• [ ] Review the remaining next steps in the VFS team tasks section here.
• [ ] If you also need engineering support from the public websites team, fill out their intake request form as well: Open a public websites intake request
• [ ] If you're requesting a page/URL redirect, a URL change, or a vanity URL, submit an additional request for this work: Open a redirect, URL change, or vanity URL request
• [ ] If you're creating an experimental design, also contact the design system team: Read more about experimental designs
  Suggest an addition or update to the design system team
• [ ] If you're requesting a11y support for usability research, submit a research support request next: Open an a11y research support request
• [ ] If you are requesting content support, please share your content source of truth (preferably as a SharePoint document).
• [ ] Please don't close this intake when work is complete - CAIA will close and track

[NaomiPMC]

A is working with Laura on this around claim status tool.