Vets.gov form design process

Creating a good form is not as simple as recreating an existing form with new visuals, or of transferring a paper form to digital. Vets.gov has developed a process that considers stakeholder and user needs, as well as the existing form and the process it's a part of.

Who are the stakeholders?

  • Form owner
  • subject matter experts
  • VA employees processing form
  • VA employees that help Veterans to complete the form

Who are the users?

  • Veterans
  • family members
  • VA employees that help Veterans to complete the form

What is the form?

  • Review paper form, in detail: Is the form currently being revised by the owner?
  • If it exists, review digital form, in detail: Create detailed flow diagram using screenshots of each decision point
  • Create comparison spreadsheet of fields
  • Document all (or relevant) content
  • [Stakeholder Interviews] Identify elements of offline experience:
    • What kind of communication or followup happens after the form?
    • Can the Veteran find out anything about their status, results, etc. through another online source?

How does this form process work?

  • [Stakeholder Interviews] Understand backend and human processes: Identify constraints for how data needs to be collected based on backend process
  • [Stakeholder Interviews] Prod for how fields are used in processing: computer, human or otherwise
    • Look for things that are a greater burden on the applicant than they a time saver to VA employees
    • Look for ways the form could be tweaked to easily relieve burden from VA employees. Document these decisions. Why, who, etc.
    • Are there any work-arounds being employed to process the forms now?
  • Note confusing form fields
  • Identify related and potentially dependent questions

Who uses the form?

  • [Stakeholder Interviews] Identify use cases for the form. Who and why.
  • [User Interviews] Interview form users to identify paint points (Commonly: Which form? What does this question mean? When do I fill out the form? How am I supposed to hear back?)
  • [User Interviews] Note work arounds that applicants commonly use to complete the form

Confirm scope

  • Use design review process to confirm that functionality identified as out of scope is truly non-critical to the success of the form process.

How should the form work?

  • Create an outline for each required chapter
    • Identify field types
    • Identify dependent questions
  • Create punchlist of copy needs (Many of the field level elements may be straightforward or direct copies from other forms)
  • If new interactions are required, note these with development team and work on high fidelity mocks of what this new pattern would look like.
    • Get feedback from design team
    • Check with core team to make sure new patterns aren't reinventing the wheel
    • Test new pattern if necessary
  • Think about entry and exit points for the form
    • Does your form require changes to navigation?
    • Is related static content up to date?
    • Are there any other places you should be able to get to the form from?

Usability Testing

  • Use the live prototype to test the form process with applicants
    • identify unclear language
    • check whether new patterns are working
  • Iterate
  • Test again if necessary