[CAIA Intake] <Education Data Migration Team>: <WEAMS Public>

[cassidy-beach]

Content, accessibility, information architecture (CAIA) new initiative collaboration request

Use this ticket to request collaboration on a new initiative with the sitewide content, accessibility, and information architecture (CAIA) team.

About your team

• Team name: Education Data Migration
• OCTO product owner: Darla van Nieukerk
• Product name: WEAMS Public (in Comparison Tool)
• Product manager: Cassidy Beach
• Slack channel: edm-team
• Dedicated content writer on your team (if you have one): Insert name and/or GH handle
• Dedicated a11y specialist on your team (if you have one): Insert name and/or GH handle

About your initiative

Which of these descriptions best fits the work we’ll partner on?

Select all that apply.

• Digitizing a new form
• Creating a new digital tool
• Updating an existing form or tool
• Translating a form or tool into Spanish
• Adding new unauthenticated content to VA.gov
• Updating existing unauthenticated content on VA.gov
• Something else: insert description

What's the nature of your initiative and desired outcomes?

• Our team will enhance VA education tools by migrating WEAMS Public (WP) data into the Comparison Tool. The current-state design and functionality of WEAMS Public site will be analyzed to identify any future WP functionality via an extract from WEAMS corporate and GIDS, including updated institution, license, certification, and exam information.
• Users want to see relevant, accurate information across tools. Information should be consistent throughout VA education benefit tools to reduce benefit miscalculations.
• Users will be able to view institutional, license, certification, and exam information in an easy-to-read, 508-approved format.

Collaboration timeframe

Note: We work on nearly every OCTO product and manage all unauthenticated content on VA.gov, so we will need to prioritize intake requests based on overall workload and VA and OCTO priorities.

Is this work tied to a Congressional mandate, change in law or policy, or upcoming event with a specific deadline?

• Yes
• No
• I’m not sure

Where are you at in your timeline?

Tell us briefly about what you're working on now (such as initial discovery, wireframing, or usability research planning) and add any known dates for upcoming milestones or deadlines.

Wireframing/mockups
Looking to schedule Design Intent touchpoint within 1 month

Will you release this new product incrementally (for example, release to 25% of users to start)?

• Yes
• No

Note: For an incremental launch, we use React widgets to display dynamic content. We'll need at least 2 weeks of extra time to coordinate the content for this and work with your engineer. Learn more about our process for dynamic content. If your launch plans change, notify CAIA of the change as soon as possible so we can talk about how that will impact the timeline.

If you are releasing incrementally:

• What dates do you anticipate starting and ending your incremental launch? Enter dates
• What is the name of your engineer who will build the React widget? Name

Collaboration cycle

Which phases of the collaboration cycle have you completed?

Select all that apply.

• Design intent
• Midpoint review
• Staging
• None. This initiative isn’t going through the collaboration cycle.

Collaboration cycle ticket

If you’re going through the collaboration cycle, provide a link to your Collaboration Cycle Request:

• Hyperlinked Ticket Number:

Supporting artifacts

Provide links to any supporting artifacts that can help us better understand your initiative and begin collaboration. Include artifacts like your product outline, user flows, mockups and prototypes, or any draft content.

• WEAMS Public Product Outline
• WEAMS Public Mockups

Next steps

• Review the remaining next steps in the VFS team tasks section here.
• If you also need engineering support from the public websites team, fill out their intake request form as well: Open a public websites intake request
• If you're requesting a page/URL redirect, a URL change, or a vanity URL, submit an additional request for this work: Open a redirect, URL change, or vanity URL request
• If you're creating an experimental design, also contact the design system team: Read more about experimental designs
  Suggest an addition or update to the design system team
• If you're requesting a11y support for usability research, submit a research support request next: Open an a11y research support request
• If you are requesting content support, please share your content source of truth (preferably as a SharePoint document).

IA Tasks

Preview Give feedback

1. IA Tracker ticket
2. IA spec
3. Feedback

[strelichl]

Checking with Danielle if we should pick up this work

[cassidy-beach]

Hello @strelichl do I need to take any further action to begin the collaboration process?

[strelichl]

@cassidy-beach we're still waiting for our OCTO lead to confirm with POs whether we will be able to provide support, but I'll update here when we hear back

[cassidy-beach]

Hi @strelichl! Are there any updates?

[strelichl]

@cassidy-beach still waiting!

[strelichl]

Noting that I still need to follow up with Danielle on the content portion next week, but in the meantime Mikki is coordinating with our IA folks on next steps for that piece.

[cassidy-beach]

Yes, I've been in contact with Sam and Kristin. Thank you!

[scjwalker]

Thanks for the great meeting today Cassidy, Sneha, Jen, and Theresa. And for all the awesome detailed chat about next steps for the 'Licenses and Certifications' search and the 'National Tests' costs lists. A quick summary of my understanding of this work:

• Both the 'Licenses and Certifications' and the 'National Tests' data is being moved into the School Comparison tool
• We brainstormed some good options for how to organize where this info goes, given that there are contract constraints that it should be in the Comparison tool, and design constraints that the Comparison tool cannot have its own left nav.
• • The comparison tool could have its own intro page, describing and linking to each type of serch
• • The comparison tool could have different tabs for the different searches
• We're going to check our brainstormed options with OCTO and stakeholders
• I'm going to start working on IA guidelines, that will solidify as we iterate.

[scjwalker]

@cassidy-beach @sneha8712 I discussed our brainstorm of where to locate the Licenses & Certifications search and the National Test cost list, with OCTO. A new suggestion for where to locate National Tests came out of the conversation.

In the Eduction hub, there is already a benefit rates page in place, which organizes the rates/costs for different GI Bill benefits. Some advantages to locating the National Tests cost list here:

• It is a good data-type fit. Because the National Tests data is a simple list.
• CAIA has a process in place for updating rates in this section several times a year, so your team/org would not be responsible for updating test cost rates as they change over time (and would not need to devote developer time to making those updates inside the tool, which tends to be more costly)

If you would like support discussing this option with your stakeholders, since it's a good fit for how va.gov is set up but may not be a complete fit with your contract's mandate of moving data into the Comparison Tool, please let me know.