Every Child Tennessee

Every Child is a national nonprofit that helps connect prospective volunteers and foster parents with local opportunities. For their launch in Tennessee, they wanted to revise their website to better meet user needs. To that end, we contributed to: 

• User research. We met one-on-one and through small focus groups with representatives of Every Child’s diverse group of stakeholders. This included staff from state child welfare agencies, local organizations, prospective volunteers, and current and prospective foster parents. 
• Creating a prototype of a new website. After several weeks of user research, we then created a prototype of a new website. Our aim was to address the primary concerns and goals we heard about through our user research. 

Every Child launched in Tennessee with this revised website in August 2024. Since then, they have seen a three-fold increase in the number of new volunteers and foster parents.

CalCareers

In 2023, we participated in a research and design sprint that focused on users of the state careers website. Our goal was to learn about any barriers to job-seekers finding relevant jobs quickly. We conducted research into how users searched for and found jobs, and navigated the process. To that end, we contributed to: 

• An initial round of user research. Through an open survey and one-on-one user interviews, we learned directly from users about what did and did not work about calcareers.gov. 
• Creation of a prototype site. Incorporating findings from user research, a prototype was designed. The goal was to develop a design that eased common pain points, while remaining technically feasible for department staff to implement. 
• A second round of usability testing. With the prototype complete, we then used usertesting.com to test and validate our design. 
• Creation of a recommendation report and executive summary. Finally, we created a recommendation report that synthesized findings from all research streams. These recommendations were summarized in an executive summary and stakeholder presentation. 

Marin County, California

Since 2024, we have worked with Marin County to update and migrate their existing county website. Our goal is to work one-on-one with department staff to evaluate their existing content, revise it to meet accessibility goals, and migrate it to a new Drupal platform. For example, we created a new site for the Marin County Fire Department in fall 2024. The existing site consisted of approximately 150 pages, which were written (on average) at a grade 10.5 reading level. To revise the site, we:

• Manually reviewed the existing site to identify outdated or incorrect information, as well as pages that could be combined or streamlined. 
• Rewrote all the remaining content in plain language, at a grade 5 to 6 reading level. 
• Created a new information architecture to make the site more easily navigable, incorporating research from page views and user behavior. 

The new site is approximately 50 pages, with improved navigation.

Child Welfare Playbook

In 2022, we worked on a migration project for a child welfare coalition that includes dozens of state and local agencies, as well as nonprofits like Think of Us and Foster America. The playbook includes recommendations and best practices in foster care for child welfare agencies. During this project, we helped migrate all existing pages to a new CMS, revised outdated pages, and created new recommendations based on existing research.

Language, Please

In 2020, Vox Media began a Google Summer Newsroom Initiative project with the goal of creating a database of guidance for journalists writing about diversity-related topics. We created a 40-page guide to disability-related terms that was research-informed and focused on lived experience. We also created an accessibility guide, to help journalists work with inclusivity. 

Organ Donation Report

In 2022, we contributed to a multi-year report on the state of organ donation reform. Supported by user researcher with organ donation center staff, healthcare experts, and current and prospective organ donors, we co-authored chapters on the use of quality assurance plans by organ donation centers and on the state of tissue donation.