Emitt Cummings

City Pair Flight Search

Updating legacy government services and tools

My goal was an integrated, modern tool built into our highest web traffic pages. I wanted to capture the outgoing web traffic and keep it on our GSA pages, giving our customers everything they needed in one seamless interaction. Design was a key part of creating that seamless experience.

The legacy City Pair Flight tool had several issues:

• Outdated UI
• High cost software updates
• Lacked GSA integration

The legacy UI was designed in another era. There was no alignment with any web standards, GSA brand, or identity. The website’s contract was written without knowledge of web best practices. Any updates, even as simple as HTML text updates, had a significant cost burden to the travel program. Therefore the website lacked updates unless they were required by statute. You can see in the screenshots it had minimal changes throughout its lifecycle.

We started from scratch and talked to customers. I designed the front end of the tool, while GSA IT began the process of integrating the API. I relied on GSA brand colors and elements, and leveraged the US Web Design System’s component library to make the tool recognizable and familiar. Soon, we had a fully redeveloped flight search tool. We avoided any additional costs, and didn’t need a contract.

Legacy government tools and services are a risk. Many government programs feel stuck, due to the high cost of updates and risk of alienating current customers. Starting from scratch feels intimidating, but with the right expertise, the results are amazing. GSA web traffic increased. The City Pair flight page went from being the 5th most visited page to the 2nd most visited page. Time on page increased, bounce rate decreased, and the traffic from the legacy tool converted to GSA web traffic. The City Pair child pages gained increased views, and the customer support center reported decreased service calls over time.

Open Government Data

Building an international web presence from scratch

Starting from zero is intimidating. There’s no point of reference and there's uncertainty about the audience. Most of my experience is working on government travel programs where the audience is other federal employees and offices. They are already familiar with our systems and I was comfortable writing to them. This project presented a new challenge.

So we started by identifying users. We interviewed researchers, scientists, data analysts, and librarians. We found the audience was highly technical and educated; however, we wanted everything to be accessible by average readers. After researching, I started drafting wire frames, user journeys, and basic site mapping.

The project team decided to integrate the web presence into GSA’s already existing architecture, rather than building our own government domain. I helped build it as a microsite on GSA, which gave room to make the site feel unique, and stand out. Everything was built with the US Web Design System, which made it feel like a cohesive part of the federal web architecture.

Sadly, the entire microsite was taken down as the United States pulled out of the international data collaboration. It can still be found through the wayback machine.

UX & Accessibility Lead

Let's start here - The Homepage

When I joined the team at the UX & Accessibility Lead GO.gov had big ideas, and had started early product testing. “That’s great,” I said, “But where do the customers log in?” Nobody had an answer. Someone had uploaded a placeholder with minimal branding, no login option, and attached zero requirements.

With a deadline fast approaching we got to work. As a UX Lead I managed a team of a web developer, a designer, and a 508 tester. As the Team Lead, I set our priority for a minimally viable product for our users. My focus was creating a federal travel homepage that would be accessible and intuitive for all customers, both inexperienced and frequent travelers. After starting with the login, we got to work on the rest of the project.

Can we add an entire Knowledge Base library?

“You want us to build and design a custom Service Now instance in 4 months?”

And we did. Designed, Built, User-tested, and Ready!

The Service Now property was an entirely new feature for government travel. It included a dedicated help desk, a knowledge base of travel help content, a chatbot, and was built scalable for each agency. With a short deadline I relied on our early work. All color choices were picked from the brand strategy. All web elements were emulated off the US Web Design System. All of this helps the user. The jumping between systems gives the illusion it’s all one big program, rather than many different web properties working together.

What about Data Analytics software?

Again, we designed and user-tested another software for data reporting. Overall, due to limitations it had fewer customerizations, but still required multiple rounds of user-testing and design feedback. We delivered an MVP data reporting software that fit all user requirements.

Finally, the actual travel booking software.

At this point in my portfolio I just want to thank you for still reading.

Concur requires a lot of work, customization, 508 testing, and lengthy processes for improvements. It took the most amount of my team’s time. We user test, we find issues, we document, and we look for improvements. In a never ending cycle it’s easy to lose sight of the main goal: Building intuitive and easy to use software for our travel customers.

Every button, feature, line of text, and UX copy is reviewed. What most people don’t understand is that government travel is unique, and unfortunately complicated. It’s a real challenge to take complex laws and policy and explain it with plain language. So what do we do when something needs fixing and the software doesn’t offer customization?

The software to fix software

Que WalkMe. The software to fix UI issues in our software.

After all the rounds of user testing we knew a few things would need training, guides, or video walkthroughs. WalkMe is an elegant and unobtrusive guide that prompts users for help when they log in.

WalkMe required a solid team of designers and developers to create the final product. Another four designers and developers were added to my team and we quickly got to work fixing those unfixable issues.

And here I’ll brag.

Ultimately, for this project, my team and I were the only ones building and perfecting the software for the average user. Without us, everyday travelers would have many issues and would need ample amounts of training. I have the data to back up that statement.

Without my experience the whole project would have failed a lot of customers. That’s why it’s so important to update these old legacy government systems with the right people. They can, and do work when you build a team with the right experience. You can have the smartest contractors in the world, but if nobody is thinking about the customer’s journey, then it’s bound to fail.

This is just the highlight of my career so far. Our government can deliver great digital services to all. It just needs the right leaders in place. Thank you again for your time.