VA.gov website
AdHoc, LLC: VA.gov Team, Senior UX Designer and Lead Researcher
Challenge
When Veterans encountered contextual next step prompts or errors related to accessing a VA.gov health tool, they were unsure how to move forward.
Research
After conducting remote usability testing with Veterans, we learned that contextual messaging, meant to guide them forward, was completely missed.
Design improvements
The team redesigned contextual error messages to included less red to reduce Veterans’ anxiety when encountering them. (These visual updates were also updated in VA.gov’s design system.)
We also rewrote the content of the error messages so that we could walk Veterans through the steps needed to get through a phone tree or fill out a Help Desk request form.
