We had two different assignments at the USHR, each of which resulted in delivering recommendations for standards based on evaluation projects to measure website performance against best practices.
House Administration Committee
CHALLENGE:
The Democratic staff of the Committee of House Administration in the U.S. House of Representatives hired us to help lawmakers strengthen their online communications. Independent critiques of the websites had shown lawmakers that there was room for improvement, but no strategic plan was in place to address it.
SOLUTION:
We delivered custom Web scorecards for each lawmaker’s site. Each scorecard made recommendations for specific priority improvements on its site.
After a pilot effort with key offices to confirm our approach, we completed over 200 confidential website evaluations using a custom scorecard to measure adherence to USHR rules, compliance with Section 508 guidelines for accessibility, content, and usability.
We briefed the Chiefs of Staff, Press Secretaries, and Webmasters on the aggregate results to give everyone in the Democratic Caucus a means of judging their score against their peers. The Committee on House Administration issued the standards document to Democratic staff, based on this work, which set guidelines for Web performance for the first time. We were also able to share best practices across the House to encourage staff to reuse and recycle ideas that worked.
RESULTS:
At the end of the project, we delivered a comprehensive report that analyzed the results and provided recommendations for the future management of House websites.
Chief Administrative Officer
CHALLENGE:
In collaboration with the Chief Administrative Officer, we served as an enterprise content management consultant. We responded to an RFP for the opportunity and joined the CAO Web Staff as a consultant. This team was in charge of a variety of web products, including house.gov, the USHR Intranet called HouseNet, and (at the time) about one-third of all websites for members of the House of Representatives.
SOLUTION:
Here, we initiated a series of peer reviews for the professional developers on staff to review each other’s work, where participants provided valuable feedback about strengths and weaknesses to the team as a whole.
We also surveyed the developers to determine their attitudes about which website standards were the most important. Finally, we independently evaluated select sites against the best-practice standards. By comparing the survey results, which reflected their attitudes, with the practices showcased in the sites themselves, we were able to deliver recommendations for a standards program that met the needs of this audience.
Our comprehensive report on the project detailed both our observations and ideas for the future to leverage improvements in Web management practices.
The Intranet was also examined against best practices in terms of heuristics. They had an initial blueprint, which I reviewed. Additionally, my content audit and analysis yielded recommendations for enhancing the information architecture.
RESULTS:
In this assignment, we provided the CAO with several key deliverables, including:
- A management review of CAO Web work on lawmaker sites with recommended publishing standards
- An evaluation of their blueprint and information architecture for the House Intranet, named HouseNet
- A framework for model key performance indicators reports on the House.gov and HouseNet domains
- The first edition of the content publishing guidelines for the House Intranet
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