Challenge
In 2019 I worked on rolling out and customising Eidosmedia’s Methode software package for use by the Congressional Research Services. Methode is an XML based publishing software that would allow CRS to streamline authoring, review workflows, and allow them to automatically publish to any number of print or digital layouts.
I served as Human Centered Design Lead for this project on areas of customization such as the dashboards for authors and reviewers, workflows, and the metadata interaction panel in the report authoring view.
I also conducted the end-to-end design and development of the interaction panel - taking it from wireframes to interactive prototype, designing the UI and visual hierarchy, and coding all of the front end with HTML, CSS, JS, and Bootstrap
Report Panel
The Report Panel allowed report authors to manage information such as report title and internal product number, as well as add authors, co-authors, reviewers, and peer reviewers. Additionally it allowed authors and reviewers to manage the clearance record of the report as it progresses through the internal CRS workflow from section review to division review before finally being published to Congress and the public.
Dashboard
The Dashboard allowed CRS authors and reviewers create and manage the reports they were authoring and reviewing, as well as give authors and reviewers a tool to manage the clearance record of a report as it is in each stage in the review process.
Report Ribbon Optimization
I conducted user research around how researchers at CRS use the functionality available to them in the WYSIWYG style ribbon interface, as well as to uncover any mental models about how users at CRS group, organize, and name the different ribbon functionalities.
