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