Fundamental needs and preferences

CMCS staff findings from user research

Summarized in August 2021

Needs

• Multiple views of the regulations (i.e. section, subpart, part). They want to conceptually zoom in and out with larger and smaller amounts of information, and search in browser via CTRL-F.
• An understanding of how comprehensive the information they’re reading is. Are they looking at all the supplementary content available or just some amount of it? Is anything missing?
• The ability to look for words/phrases that may not actually be in the regulations (the common term may be different than the regulatory term).
• Multiple options for navigating the regulations depending on what they’re doing and their level of familiarity with the particular piece of regulation.
• Ability to trust that less experienced people will interpret the regulations correctly based on what they see, and that misinterpretations will not arise based on the information provided.
• An understanding of how current our information is and when it was last updated.

Goals

• Get into the regulations and supplementary content quickly, without having to wade through less relevant material or UI elements
• Be able to share information easily

Observed individual needs

Summarized in June 2021

Available technology

• Users primarily use laptops for regulation research over the reg book. Many people use at least one external monitor.

Current policy research process

• There isn't a standard process to research policy information: everyone develops their own process.
  • Some people have been trained by the reg book, others by eCFR.
  • People ask each other questions on how best to find information, especially as they are starting out in their role.
• Currently, people can find and read all of the regulations that they need to access.
  • DSG and policy makers currently use eCFR, LII and the Medicaid.gov's [Federal Policy Guidance](https://www.medicaid.gov/federal-policy-guidance/index.html.
  • However, analyzing regulations can be a very manual process requiring people to cross-reference multiple sources no matter which tool they currently use.
• People often save a lot of information locally or use browser bookmarks to aid in re-findability.
• People writing regs may print and annotate regulations text as part of their research and writing process.
• We don't know how much the pandemic has affected people's relationship to the regs (using the book, printing, etc.). One or two people we've talked with mentioned that they used to use their reg book at the office, but left it at their desk after shifting to working from home.

Interacting with this tool

• People tend to research policy using multiple tabs and windows on multiple monitors for more information.
• People primarily want current regulatory guidance, as well as relevant regulation resources, such as sub-regulatory guidance
  • However, historical guidance that tracks policy changes over time is helpful and will be heavily accessed

Training and documentation

• People will benefit from demonstrations of new features and training sessions and/or documentation on eRegulations capabilities

Observed organizational needs

Summarized in June 2021

• eRegulations users are across the Centers for Medicaid and CHIP (both DSG and the policy groups).
• Different departments within DSG have different needs for their tools.

Branding and visual styles

• eRegulations should look like it lives in the same world as Medicaid.gov, and ideally, live within the site itself