Quality Assurance Capability

Four guided steps, no command line, on offline laptops. Map data checks went from days to hours, by contractors' account, and 2,000-plus files were checked in the first month.

One feature, start to finish The guided map-data check

  • Research found the real problem
  • Design designed the answer
  • Measurement partly measured

Partly measured. "Days to hours" is contractors' account, not timed. The file count is the delivery team's own, and we checked accessibility ourselves, with no outside auditor.

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Context

Why did this work matter?

  1. C
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  6. O

NATO contractors had to send error-free map data to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The only checker was an old Visual Basic program whose Windows was losing support, so contractors couldn't install it. Each submission took days of pop-up forms and binder checklists.

Research

How was it tested?

  1. C
  2. A
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  4. D
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We watched the work at military installations and interviewed, by video, people already doing it the hard way. After that we researched every two weeks and showed a demo every week.

Intervention

What changed because of it?

  1. C
  2. A
  3. R
  4. D
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  6. O

A web app in a desktop installer, running on offline laptops. Four guided steps, no command line: drop the folder in, confirm it's complete, run the detailed checks, download the report. The design system had no pop-ups, wizards or data tables, so we built 40-plus pieces in its style.

The results screen. A headline reads '44 things to look at' with a chip for 2 blocking conditions and the run's provenance: MGCP 4V4.5, cell N50E016, Poland / Czech border, finished 14:22. Below left, an OpenStreetMap basemap of the cell carries large red markers for blocking findings and smaller blue ones for advisory, inside a dashed cell boundary. Below right, the six conditions are listed blocking-first with their counts.
The map shows where each problem is; the list puts must-fix ones first.

Outcome

What was the impact?

  1. C
  2. A
  3. R
  4. D
  5. I
  6. O

Checking a batch went from days to hours, by contractors' own account, so they submitted sooner. The tool checked over 2,000 map files in its first month, and met the federal accessibility standard, checked with automatic tools and a screen reader.

Also on this project

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  • 40+

    Missing design system pieces, built in React with instructions and automatic tests.

  • Weekly

    Demos of what we learned from users and the finished features, with research every two weeks.

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