Is your agency ready for the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act?

Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them. Section 508, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act has long been part of governmental web content, and IDEAct reinforces this. Considering that one in five Americans identify as having a disability and use an assistive technology, it’s not just about following the law—it’s about creating an experience that every American can access and consume.

While IDEAct mandates certain elements be part of the design and architecture of an experience (e.g., a search function, mobile responsiveness, secure connection), a larger portion of the act is less prescriptive, focusing on creating digital experiences that are built upon establishing a qualitative (human-centered) and quantitative (data-driven) understanding of customers. This means being empathetic—to what customers are trying to do, how they try to do it, how they think about it, why they do it—and ultimately understanding how customers consume.

It’s also important to acknowledge the experience is not confined to when customers are “doing something” that interfaces with the agency; many of the worst customer experiences are likely cases related to “doing nothing,” i.e., customers not receiving updates or noting being able to find the information they need. Once the what, how, and why of customer motivations and actions are built, this knowledge of the customer needs to be transformed into a series of small, low-risk experiments that the government can test and validate with prototype and usability testing, as well as through the application of site analytics. Focusing on iterative adjustments allows analysis of individual changes and their corresponding results, as well as keeping a pulse on customers' needs as they evolve.

Perhaps the biggest thrust of IDEAct is built around transforming legacy, paper-based services into digital forms and services complete with the usage of electronic signatures. This portion is more of a fundamental, ground-up reimagining of how agencies and their constituencies interact. While it is an extension of the human-centered and data-driven experiences, these can be more complex to design and solve for, particularly because it involves understanding how these analog forms and services exist in the larger context of agencies’ missions and processes. It is not as simple as making forms available online; agencies must work to empathetically understand each step of their customers' journeys when engaging with their digital services. Understanding the technical constraints and dependencies that exist within agencies’ ecosystems can also improve site abandonment rates.