plainlanguage.gov

In 2017, plainlanguage.gov was stuck in a legacy system that was hard to use and even harder to maintain. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had hosted it for years but could no longer cover the server costs, and the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN) had lost access to their own content. They couldn’t fix a typo or update anything out of date.

PLAIN is a volunteer team with full-time agency jobs, and the site serves over 2 million federal civilians plus millions of contractors. They needed a site they could actually run themselves.

Goals and approach

I pitched the project and directed the redesign, leading a small cross-agency team at 18F. PLAIN shared their vision, helped recruit research participants, and connected us with the FAA so we could recover the content files.

GSA had just launched 10x, a program that funds small ideas that improve the public’s experience with government. Any federal employee can apply. I submitted a brief pitch and got approval for two weeks of investigation. I was on an FBI project at the time, so my colleagues Corey Mahoney and Cyd Harrell partnered with PLAIN to quickly make the case for funding. We got approval for 6–8 weeks of design and development.

We started with three goals:

• Make the content easier to find and navigate
• Use Federalist and the U.S. Web Design System to modernize publishing
• Expand PLAIN's reach and amplify their mission

We also had questions about which improvements mattered most, which topics and content types were most useful, how to organize the content, and how to highlight top content and plain language examples. To answer them, we:

• Aligned on goals with a Mad Libs-style worksheet at our design workshop with PLAIN.
• Interviewed stakeholders and users who had requested plain language training, then shared direct quotes in a readout.
• Audited strategically, focusing on top pages from analytics and mapping redirects.
• Used data that already existed, like PLAIN's mailing list, Twitter mentions, and an interview with their training coordinator.
• Tested three ways: prototype testing for structure and direction, a tree test in Optimal Workshop for navigation, and preference testing on table styles for before-and-after examples.

Our testing validated the design direction, and highlighted some changes we should make to improve link names and highlight key topics. Participants also stressed how much examples help. One told us, “Examples are the thing that really helped me understand it.” That led us to test designs for the before-and-after examples, which helped shape how we structured the content.

Results

We finished on time and on budget by using existing open source tools like the U.S. Web Design System, which gave PLAIN the ability to maintain the site easily and in the open. We converted the content, handled the domain changes, and set the site up on GitHub so the community could open issues and contribute directly. We also moved events into Digital.gov so they were easier to find and manage.

After launch, PLAIN’s co-chair said, “You made this so easy for us,” and were hearing nothing but compliments. Their web manager, who had hand-coded the site back in 2004, called the content conversion a huge gift. They also told us the before-and-after examples were a favorite with users.

Learn more about the project in my interview with PLAIN.