Creating a new design system for the Department of Education
Poor governance and a lack of strategy have made ED.gov hard to use. The Department called for help with a redesign competition.
Challenge
Storytelling was inconsistent, microcopy was unclear, user flows led to dead ends and landing pages had become link farms. We set out to reimagine ED’s brand, design, content and architecture to better serve Americans.
What I did
Led user research and content discovery
Reimagined information architecture
Wrote new UX microcopy and messaging
Created content and design components
“Marc excels at distilling content to its simplest form while improving its impact.”
Nicole Snyder, Project Manager, Amazon
Results
Our concept won Grand Prize, beating 59 competitors including Accenture and IBM. It also won us a research and design contract.
Since then, my team has interviewed users, audited content, conducted user testing and led stakeholder workshops.
They have also created a sitemap, content model, taxonomy, migration plan, governance plan, component library, brand voice and tone, style guide and content templates. ED is using those blueprints to build a new ecosystem.
"Pathways" storytelling concept for the new ED.gov
New topic-based navigation elevates buried content to put what users need up front
Reimagined Program content model drives discovery using taxonomy
Transformed Office content model provides information by topic, not organizational structure
Plain-language copy helps Americans understand ED’s impact
New governance plan streamlines processes and responsibilities