The Federal Election Commission has launched its updated FEC.gov website following a multi-year collaborative effort with the General Services Administration‘s 18F digital services organization.The new website includes revamped tools for browsing campaign finance data and legal resources as well as user-centered content designed to explain reporting and compliance requirements to individuals who seek to participate in federal elections, 18F’s Noah Manger and Jennifer Thibault wrote in an article published Tuesday.
Manger, a product lead, and Thibault, an innovation specialist, said 18F created a beta site to design, build and refine new tools that meet users’ needs and provide plain language content on complex topics.
Real users gave 18F feedback on the features they need through usability tests and an anonymous feedback tool, Manger and Thibault added.
The new design reduced the website’s navigation elements from 10 to three primary navigation items, which represent the most common areas explored by users.
The website now features a legal resources section that helps users search through multiple types of resources at once; official FEC responses to questions on federal campaign finance law; and a unified section of resources for candidates and committees.
FEC.gov is under a transition phase and has yet to feature fully redesigned pages, Manger and Thibault noted.
Features of the new and old website are available in a “hybrid state” at transition.fec.gov and the previous design is accessible via classic.fec.gov.
