Bringing HCI to the U.S. Federal Government ACM CHIMIT 2011

1. Bringing HCI to the U.S. Federal GovernmentACM CHIMIT 2011 Marti Hearst UC Berkeley School of Information AND Chief IT Strategist US Patent and Trademark Office Disclaimer: These views are my own and do not necessarily represent my organizations’ views.

2. Outline • Why is HCI difficult to employ anywhere? • Why is HCI (and good IT design) difficult to employ in government? • Recent changes for the better. • Recent developments in HCI at the USPTO. • What you can do to help.

3. Why is HCI difficult to introduce to any organization?

4. Roadblocks for HCI: any organization • Engineering leads the decision making • Develpers unaware of UCD practices • Concern that it “takes too long” • The HIPPO decides • (Highest Paid Person in the Organization) • Waterfall development method Example: ACM Manuscript Central

5. HCI In the Federal Government Do you know this building?

7. OSTP Science & Tech Policy CTO Executive Office of the President OMB Management and Budget e-Gov and IT OIRA Information and Regulatory Affairs CIO And many other offices

8. Problem: Most BIG Government IT Projects Fail • Or are very behind schedule and over cost. • According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO): • Planned federal IT spending > $81 billion for fiscal year 2012. • Many are critical to the health, economy, and security of the nation. • Unfortunately, frequently fail or have overruns while yielding little value. • Recent Examples: • After $127M over 9 years on an outpatient scheduling system, the VA had to start over. • After $40M and 7 years, FEMA canceled insurance and claims system as it did not meet user needs.

9. Why Do They Fail? • Oversight and funding models make modern IT design methods nearly impossible. • Problems related to contracting. • Lack of IT expertise by IT project leaders. • Lack of focus from executives and changeover in leadership. • Lack of a user-centered design tradition. • And serious legal hurdles to HCI.

10. HCI Legal Hurdles: PRA • Paperwork Reduction Act • Goal: ensure that information collected is useful and minimally burdensome for the public. • To ask a question of 10 or more people, must: • Clear internal legal process, then • 60 days in the Federal Register • May need to iterate based on comments • Submit documents to OMB • Another 30 day federal register notice period • ~60 days for OMB review • May need to iterate and even start again • Usually a 6 month process.

11. Legal Hurdles To Adopting Off-The-Shelf Well-Designed Software • TOS • PII • OWACS • COOP • 508 • Cookies

12. Legal Hurdles To Adopting Off-The-Shelf Well-Designed Software • TOS (Terms of Service) • PII (Personally Identifiable Information) • OWACS (Security requirements) • COOP (Disaster recovery requirements) • 508 (Accessibility Standards) • Cookies (Persistent Cookie Restrictions)

13. Changes with a New Administration • Campaign: • Emphasis on design and use of IT • Governing: • Emphasis on improving government, including: • Emphasis on reaching and involving citizens • Open data, visualization, online dialogues • Emphasis on modernizing IT practices: • Elevation of Federal CIO position • Introduction of Federal CTO position • Improving procurement • Encouraging agile development

14. Setting a Good Design Example

15. Using IT (and analytics) to Win • Example: • Dan Siroker on Obama for America’s website and video design decisions. Easy to measure the outcome: it is in money donated. • http://www.siroker.com/archives/2009/05/14/obama_lessons_learned_talk_at_google.html

16. Using IT (and analytics) to Win

18. New: PRA Fast Track • Released by OMB in June 15, 2011 • Part of the administration’s customer service emphasis • President's Executive Order (EO) 13571, on "Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” April 2011. • OMB clearance in 5 days! • Applies to information collections that focus on • the awareness, understanding, attitudes, preferences, or experiences of stakeholders • relating to existing or future services, products, or communication materials. • Specifically includes: • Focus groups • Remote usability testing • Online surveys for customer feedback purposes • However, public distribution of results cannot be intended.

19. New: Tools to Help Gov’T IT • Apps.gov • Setting up (somewhat) pre-approved software that addresses these hurdles. • Howto.gov • Explicitly addresses many customer service how-to questions • Usa.gov/webreform • Improving government web sites

22. New: 25 Point Plan for Improving Government IT • Federal CIO, VivekKundra, Dec 2010 • http://www.cio.gov/modules/itreform/ • “Successful organizations using modular development base releases on requirements they define at a high level and then refine through an iterative process, with extensive engagement and feedback from stakeholders. … • To maintain the discipline of on-time and on-budget, organizations push out additional functionality and new requirements for major changes into future releases and prioritize critical needs and end-user functionality.”

23. New: 25 Point Plan for Improving Government IT • “Evidence shows that modular development leads to increased success and reduced risk. … • Many existing government processes – from planning to budgeting to procurement – naturally favor larger, more comprehensive projects. • As such, far too many Federal IT programs have multi-year timeframes well beyond the now accepted 18- to 24-month best practice. … • Moving forward, Federal IT programs must be structured to deploy working business functionality in release cycles no longer than 12 months, and, ideally, less than six months, with initial deployment to end users no later than 18 months after the program begins.”

24. 25 Point Plan

25. HCI Practice Forming: Federal Web Managers Council • A cross-agency group of web managers • eGovernment Act of 2002 created an Interagency Committee on Government Information • They asked web managers to weigh in • This developed into a more substantial organization in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 • Government agencies needed to “stay in their lanes” • Now a very active group • Promotes social media use, user-centered design, addresses questions such as cookie policy from a customer standpoint • Representatives from all major agencies plus subject matter experts • Has a charter, elections, regular meetings, a community of practice, and a community feeling. • Runs the Federal Govtment’sWeb Manager University • Manages howto.gov

26. A New GAO Report • (Published Oct 2011) examined what went right with those projects that were successful. • Many of the factors were user-centered: Common Critical Success Factors 1. Program officials were actively engaged with stakeholders. 2. Program staff had the necessary knowledge and skills. 3. Senior department and agency executives supported the programs. 4. End users and stakeholders were involved in the development of requirements. 5. End users participated in testing of system functionality prior to formal end user acceptance testing. 6. Government and contractor staff were stable and consistent. 7. Program staff prioritized requirements. 8. Program officials maintained regular communication with the prime contractor. 9. Programs received sufficient funding.

27. Introducing HCI to the USPTO (Patent and Trademark Office)

28. US Patent and TradeMark Office quick Facts • Director: David Kappos • Entire budget ~ $2.5B • IT budget ~ $350M • Employees ~ 10,000 • Patents ~7000 • Trademarks ~600

29. USPtO Innovating with IT

30. USPtO Recent Major Changes • User-centered design is driving the biggest, highest profile IT development projects. • Have created a new Usability and Design group within OCIO; completed 3 hires. • In the process of changing the official IT development process to: • Require user-centered requirements gathering • Require usability as a criteria for software acceptance

31. Patents End-To-End IT Project • An entirely new IT system for patent examination • Designed with and for the Patents Corps • Three projects in parallel: New Software Architecture Process Reengineering User Research design IT right

32. Design IT Right Process • UCD is driving the design of the entire system June ‘10 Jul-Sep ‘10 Oct-Jan ‘11 Tasks Analysis: Interviews, Focus Groups, and Online Input Iterative Testing Of Mocked-up Interfaces Interviews, Focus Groups, and Online Input

33. Design and Selection Process • Based on user research, wrote a SOW describing desired new functionality • Bidders required to present an initial design • This worked so well it is being repeated. • Three UI design firms were selected • They refined their designs working with examiners and managers, from Nov – Jan 14, 2011. • The entire Patent Corps was invited to evaluate these three designs online.

34. Design A

35. Design D

36. Design K

37. Evaluation Process • Each vendor made an external website with: • A clickable prototype (not full functionality) • Videos illustrating the functionality • Feedback tool for commenting on specific features • USPTO made an internal website with: • An overview introduction • Links to each vendors’ landing page • A survey for each vendor’s design • A summary survey for ranking the designs

38. Evaluation Results • More than 2000 participants • Designs A and D were tied in preference • Overall scores were highly positive • The two winning vendors are now working together.

39. Screenshots of new systems go here

40. Agile Development Process • Using Agile software development techniques with our new contractors • Front end design team develops user stories and wireframes; these are the software requirements. • Front end development team designs service architecture and code with stubs for backend. • Backend team develops support for services. • Requirements setting is a few weeks ahead of backend development. • Daily scrum meetings are held • Periodic software releases are evaluated by front end team with real users. • Frequent software releases to production.

41. How You Can Get Involved

43. Become a Presidential Technology Fellow • A brand new program! • Started Fall 2011 • Part of the 25 Point Plan to Improve IT • www.cio.gov/techfellows/ • 2 year paid fellowship • Rotate among agencies • Builds on the highly successful Presidential Management Fellows program • Trains leaders for Federal Government Service • Usually a terrific cohort • Must apply in the Fall before you graduate with a masters or PhD • But very few opportunities for non-US citizens

44. Participate in Government Dialogues • Example: The National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites

46. Convert Your Knowledge into Easily Digestible How-To’s • Independent non-profits, bloggers, university groups can have real impact. • They do this work on their own initiative. • Examples: • Technology developed by OMB Watch for fedspending.org used in relaunch of USASpending. • Sunlight Foundation compiled lists of strategies for govt to address the OGD. • UC Berkeley iSchool faculty posted guidelines on how to improve the design of recovery.gov; had a big influence. • Open gov how-to workshops and websites.

47. Sample Useful How-To on Social Media Usage (From EPA)

48. Participate with Classwork • Example Idea: Usability Clinic • Professors teaching usability courses • Have their students critique a web site as a homework exercise • Commit to a particular time period • Organizations sign up for the clinic • Govt, non-profits, small businesses • May turn into longer-term projects • Think it’s a good idea? Organize it!

49. Participate with Data Analysis • Build tools that use govt data • Expose inefficiencies • Create new, useful functions • Example: • Analyze hiring latency on a per-agency basis • Data isn’t there? • Comment on agency’s opengov websites • Ask for time-to-hire data for each agency • Be persistent if necessary

50. Participate By answering Requests For Comment • Example: • OSTP Request for Comments • Federal Register, May 21, 2009 • http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2009/05/opengov.pdf • Also on the OSTP blog • Sought advice on Open Government topics: • What alternative models exist to improve the quality of decision making and increase opportunities for citizen participation? • What are the limitations to transparency? • What strategies might be employed to adopt greater use of Web 2.0 in agencies? • What policy impediments to innovation in government currently exist? • What performance measures are necessary to determine the effectiveness of open government policies?