About the project

Impact

Reduced time assessing new RFP's by upwards of 80%
Decreased cognitive load by using plain language
Better quality submissions due to improved clarity of RFP project goals

U.S. Digital Response (USDR) and the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) conducted a two-month user research project to understand how technology vendors evaluate incoming solicitations or Requests for Proposals (RFPs).

Based on feedback, we proposed changes to solicitation templates to make them easier for vendors to assess and evaluate

USDR + NASCIO

Potential Impact

Various states adopting our designed solution

Role on team

I was 1 of 2 UX Researchers and was also the team's Designer. The rest of the team included our wonderful Project Manager and USDR Lead/Procurement Expert

Research Objectives

Understand how front-line government technology vendors determine if an RFP is worth a deeper review & how they receive RFPs
Understand the key information vendors seek when they first review a new RFP
Identify pain points and solutions to make the RFP review process easier

Our Research was split up into 3 phases. Starting with a survey of NASCIO Corporate Members that our team collaborated on. Following that we scheduled User Interviews that we split into two sections with a Usability test asking the participants to "Walk and Talk" us through their review process. Informed by the previous rounds of research, we applied what learned to create an additional element and scheduled an additional round of User Interviews to also test our concept.