We’re Listening!
Most people think they’re great listeners, but remember the game of Telephone we played as a child? Everyone formed a line, and the first person whispered a sentence into the next person’s ear and so on. We laughed aloud when the last person spoke up and the sentence was practically unrecognizable from the original.
We’ve taken this childhood lesson to heart – and as a result – the FIT team is intentionally trying to be a good listener. As part of the Treasury Financial eXperience (TFX), we are using an Iterative Development approach to be sure we understand what the user wants and needs. This means we are designing, developing, and deploying incremental TFX features –to incorporate user feedback along the way.
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Survey of participants likely to use the new TFX site.
Before development of the TFX started, we built a prototype that was used to conduct focus groups with 30+ users across 11 agencies and bureaus. One key finding was that users lacked confidence in their search results for Fiscal Service guidance and spent time being sure they had all the information needed. As a result, robust search capabilities became a top priority for the TFX solution. The focus groups also showed that users preferred task based rather than role-based navigation to be sure they did not miss key information.
Once development of TFX started, we used events such as AGA chapter meetings and conferences to show the TFX solution and get user feedback. For example, at the February 12th AGA National Leadership Training in D.C. we met with 49 users and got the following feedback:
- How likely to use TFX site – 86% told us likely or very likely
- What TFX features would they like most
- Primary Navigation – 61%
- Overall Design – 51%
- Site Features – 37%
- Examples of what users would like to see on the TFX site
- Relationships between various FFM resources
- Easier access to USSGL information
- Area for recent policy changes
- Community pages for collaboration
- More Uses Cases and graphics
In the coming weeks, we will launch a Card Sort exercise to everyone on the TFX listserv. Your responses will help us organize content on the site. Soon after, we’ll get the TFX site populated with sample content, and will reach out to the user community again for preliminary usability testing. All this input will help us launch the TFX solution in September.
Throughout this process, we’ll keep listening to you. Provide feedback at any time by sending your ideas to TFXFeedback@fiscal.treasury.gov. Or be a part of this great movement, and get up-to-date events, focus group invites, quick surveys and information about the TFX, by joining our listserv.
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Survey of TFX features participants wanted most.
To find out more about the Fiscal Service, visit fiscal.treasury.gov or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.