Testimonials for First Fridays

Loren Frant, Director of MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

Thanks so much for a great session on Friday.  It was extremely valuable for us and we're looking forward to making improvements to MedlinePlus Mobile.
 

Stuart Willoughby, Director, Publication Services and Citizen Outreach
General Services Administration

The FF team was terrific. Thanks so much for finding a time slot to test our site, Publications.usa.gov. We picked up some very important usability issues, which we'll take care of ASAP.

Claudette Archambault, ScrumMaster, U.S. Senate

First Fridays are very Scrum-like in terms of their scope.

Sarah Hyder, Director, Enterprise Web Management
General Services Administration

Thank you very much everyone. This [First Fridays Test session] was immensely informative and all of the participants provided great insight and suggestions. You all deserve a round of applause!

Sarah Crane, Director, USA.gov/GobiernoUSA.gov/Kids.gov
General Services Administration

I just can't tell you enough how awesome the First Fridays team is!

The team tested m.usa.gov today and their efforts will help us prioritize improvements to the mobile site—which is especially important considering the rate at which traffic is growing to this site (well over 100% increases month over month).

As a "client," I've never had an easier experience. The full staff operates like a well-oiled machine and there was not a single detail that went overlooked. The amount accomplished in just 4 hours is really unbelievable! This program is really a shining example of doing WAY more with less.

On behalf of the USA.gov team, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Susan Glimcher, Director, Communications, Education, and Outreach
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

What a fantastic morning. You are to be congratulated for an amazing program. Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of it. It is so incredibly valuable. I’ve already told my Exec Director he must join us for at least two sessions and the lunch. I am looking forward to working with you and learning more as we go.

Ron Jones, Web Manager
National Weather Service, NOAA

It's an eye opening experience for people to be a participant in this usability testing.... We can now say, "Users didn’t understand the terminology—it didn’t resonate with the average user." It’ll save us a lot of time, a lot of heartache, and a lot of money.

Sunny (SueLi) Yao, Quality Manager, Enterprise Communications
Department of Labor

It was nice to work with you; you all provide an excellent customer service. Our public will definitely benefit after we improve our website. Thank you.

Nicole Vincent, Consumer Education Specialist
Federal Trade Commission

I’m excited to let you know that yesterday we launch the new OnGuardOnline.gov. The usability testing we did through First Fridays led directly to many of the changes you will see on the site, including a new article format to help people scan articles easily and an article table of contents that lets people skip right to the information they need.

We also revised every single article on the site to make it more direct, concise, and organized, and put useful links in the text, so if we say “get rid of malware”, we link right to the steps for getting rid of malware. We did this for tutorials as well. In addition, we used a card sorting exercise to restructure the site with four primary categories we think will be intuitive for our users to find the info they need.

We wanted to let you know how much we really appreciated the feedback we got through First Fridays. And we’d be happy to share our experience with other agencies.

Sandy Carter, UX Specialist/Interface Design
Harris Corporation

Had the opportunity to observe the First Fridays Rocket Team in action yesterday via a remote connection from my office in Florida. Good stuff. They tested several users and what I really thought was great was the opportunity for the observers to ask the participants questions at the end of each sessions. This isn't something we normally do but we plan to start doing it. It was so awesome of them to allow me to observe and learn. Thanks Rocket Team!

Content Lead: Jonathan Rubin
Page Reviewed/Updated: April 30, 2012