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CASE STUDIESUsability and Design Support for the National Archives
The Problem The mission of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is to preserve and provide ready access to the U.S. Government’s valuable historical records. NARA is also subject to the President’s E-Government initiative, which requires “improved Internet-based technology to make it easy for citizens and businesses to interact with the government, save taxpayer dollars, and streamline citizen-to-government communications.” To meet these objectives, NARA is working to transition the majority of its business from manual transactions conducted by its research staff, to “citizen-centric” web-based systems accessible to the public via the Internet. The Solution Aptima provides ongoing usability and design support to NARA's efforts in a variety of ways. For example, Aptima applies its Interaction Design & Usability Assessment expertise to help ensure that NARA’s electronic and online interfaces are easy to use, so NARA’s research staff can accomplish their tasks quickly and efficiently, while at the same time making records easily accessible to the public. In addition, Aptima is helping to integrate usability throughout NARA’s product development lifecycle through the routine use of expert reviews, iterative design and usability evaluations of key products, and user interface redesign. Aptima also provides NARA with usability evaluations and design for many of its online processes and Web-based systems. Aptima supports NARA’s Order Online! product by performing needs analyses, conducting usability evaluations, and producing redesigns of the product. Other products supported by Aptima include the Archives Research Catalog, and the overall NARA website. The Results
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