Challenge

U.S. Digital Response (USDR) helps governments, nonprofits, and public entities respond quickly to critical public needs by activating highly-skilled talent, leveraging new technology, and partnering directly with governments and nonprofits. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was the Research and Design Lead/ Technologist-in-residence for the Health Program, responding to the influx of requests from local and state governments who needed help launching vaccination portals and websites to serve their communities. Often, their websites did not consider accessibility standards impacting harder-to-reach populations and shared complex health information that confused their communities in booking a vaccination appointment.​

 

Approach 

I led 19+ projects in six months with cities, municipalities, local health departments and agencies, and community-based organizations to create equitable and accessible website designs and content using health literacy, plain language guidelines, and crisis communication. I also managed 30+ volunteers to deliver evidence-based research such as comparative analysis, contextual inquiry, usability testing, and interviews to increase governments' confidence and connection to their communities. Additionally, I impacted health and care-seeking behaviors by implementing cognitive biases in writings and communication in social media posts and patient education brochures. I wroted, edited, and gathered information to create clear, concise, and compelling written materials to engage key stakeholders and audiences. Materials include press releases, speeches, blogs, op-eds, backgrounders, talking points, scripts, reports, stories, and website copy. Lastly, I built governments' capacity to integrate literacy and equity in digital media through website templates and a toolkit.​

 

Results 

Read about the accomplishments of USDR's Health Program here. My work is under the section Website Usability, Communication, and Equity, which are summarized here:

• Various speaking engagements include the American Public Health Association during National Public Health Week and the DotGov Conference.

• COVID-19 Vaccine Website Template: A Medium article that announces the launch of a vaccination website template, ready for government partners to use within days.

• Improving Vaccine Info Webpages with Updated Content and Design for Pueblo County, CO: A successful case study on redesigning Pueblo County’s, CO COVID vaccine and testing webpages using user experience and equity design principles.

• COVID-19 Communication Toolkit: A Health Equity Lens: A step-by-step guide to help health communicators, content developers, educators, and designers put health equity recommendations into COVID-19 communication action.

• How to incorporate equity into your health communications efforts: Key takeaways from applying equity-focused design in COVID communications with government partners.​