When COVID vaccines were first available, in early 2021, they were hard to find. People scoured pharmacy websites, vaccine hunter groups popped up, and lone techies built vaccine finder sites overnight. The Biden Administration rushed to address the confusion. The solution was a website that let the public search for COVID vaccination locations across the country.
I was part of a U.S. Digital Service (USDS) team that was brought in to make that new government site happen. We relaunched an existing CDC site (vaccinefinder.org) as vaccines.gov. Our task was to make sure it could withstand 100 million visitors and make it usable for everyone. President Biden was going to unveil the site in one month.
My role
I was one of two designers on the USDS team. We worked collaboratively to refresh the site. We would divide up ownership of redesigns, research, and stakeholder meetings and rely on each other for support and design critiques. This was an excellent working experience where you felt like you could have ownership over something while also being supported in your design craft.
My primary focus was on
usability testing of the existing site,
managing the creation of the Spanish-language site (vacunas.gov),
idea-to-implementation of adding appointment availability data into the site,
establishing user research standards on the team, and
hiring and training a new designer.
Reviewing the existing site
We started by scrutinizing the current CDC site through usability testing, stakeholder interviews, and heuristic analysis. We wanted to understand where it met the public’s needs and where it fell short.
Usability testing. I organized and facilitated 9 usability sessions that asked participants to use the existing site to find a vaccine near them. We heard and saw peoples’ frustrations finding vaccines, what they considered when searching, and where the existing UI caused confusion.
Stakeholder interviews. We talked to stakeholders across the CDC to understand the goals and constraints that shaped the current site. We also spoke with the national pharmacies and local clinics to learn how the site was getting data and the challenges in delivering that data.
Heuristic analysis. Another USDS designer and I scored the current site according to a simple rubric of UX, inclusivity, and accessibility heuristics that we created. For example, the site needed to use plain language and be available in other languages or, at least, easily translated.
Outcomes
Given our short deadline, we focused on UX improvements that would broaden access to vaccines.gov.
Accessibility. The team collaborated to make vaccines.gov accessible to those using assistive technology. On the design side, this involved audits of color contrast, font size, text readability, and more. That got us to WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. Unsatisfied with simple compliance, another designer and I did independent run-throughs of the site using Apple VoiceOver to better understand firsthand how the site would work with assistive tech. We followed our audits with early access of the site to disability advocacy groups. The result was broader access for people with disabilities.
Vacunas.gov. We created vacunas.gov to make the site accessible to the Spanish-speaking public. I led the effort to get the site content translated into Spanish for the initial launch of vacunas.gov. I worked with engineers and CDC translators to ensure that we were able to create a code infrastructure that allowed for easy updates. We also updated existing design patterns to better accommodate longer text often found in Spanish. This work opened that site up to ~15% of the U.S. population.
Better performance. With other designers, I worked with engineers to make changes that improved the performance of the site. We were smarter about when to load certain large assets, like an interactive map. I ran a “font diet” to cut the variety of fonts and font weights used on the site, which reduced the assets to load. We optimized the images on the site. That work led to a drop from a 10-15 second load time to 7 seconds on slow 3G connections. Not ideal but a marked improvement.
Better UI flow. Using learnings form our initial usability testing and some follow-up usability testing on some early prototypes, we were able to reorganize the UI to improve clarity and make navigation easier.
Product launch and impact
On May 4, 2021, President Biden announced the launch of vaccines.gov and vacunas.gov. The site was very well received by the public. Vaccines.gov and vacunas.gov have helped 184+ million visitors search for COVID vaccines for themselves, friends, and family.
