Relevant Articles

User Research Is Not Illegal, Uncle Sam

An article by Erie Meyer (co-founder of USDS) outlining how Usability Testing is separate from PRA and does not fall under its jurisdiction.

Developer Experience vs. User Experience?

Since the U.S. Forms System MVP will be heavily focused on DX, this article is relevant to checking/balancing against the end user experience. Also, a future iteration could have a third type of non-technical (but not end user) user, such as a content manager or non technical producer.

Source: Ju-Lie McReynolds

Choosing Our Preferences

This article provides a compelling argument for why software should limit the amount of preferences when possible.

...ideally preferences are optional and the default behavior is reasonable without intervention. Hard coding what can be hard coded has a lot of value.

I find that users ask for a preference by default. If a user is using my app FooBar and they come to something they think is stupid - say the app deletes all their email - it’s extremely common that they’ll file a bug saying “there should be an option to disable eating all my email” instead of one saying “your craptastic junk-heap of an app ate my email.”

Source: Andy Nacin