Skip to main content

Making it easier to ask questions about VA benefits and services

Overview

In 2024, Veterans and their support networks submitted 500,000 questions to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs through Ask VA. Getting answers to questions is critical for Veterans to access or resolve issues with their benefits and services. We helped migrate Ask VA from a standalone Microsoft portal to VA.gov while improving the user experience.

The challenge

Ask VA was originally built as a standalone Microsoft portal with significant usability and accessibility issues. The platform was not mobile-friendly, failed to meet Section 508 accessibility standards, and presented Veterans with a burdensome 42-field contact form filled with unclear and inconsistent language. Important features like file uploads were hidden or poorly placed, causing confusion and missed opportunities for Veterans to submit necessary documentation. The complex form structure, jargon-heavy language and inaccessible components made it particularly difficult for Veterans with cognitive disabilities or those using assistive technology to successfully ask their questions.

Our contribution

As part of a larger team led by Oddball, Blue Tiger provided senior-level design and user research support to this effort.

We conducted extensive stakeholder engagement with over 50 specialists across 18 VA business lines to understand existing workflows and technical constraints. Through workshops and collaboration sessions, we mapped how inquiries are routed and identified opportunities to simplify the service without disrupting backend operations. More specifically, we:

  • Simplified the 42-field contact form by identifying the minimum necessary data for user identification and removing redundant fields, while ensuring compatibility with existing CRM systems.
  • Applied plain language principles to rewrite category labels and form content, making it easier for Veterans to choose the correct options and understand what information was needed.
  • Conducted user research with Veterans, including those with cognitive disabilities and those using assistive technology like JAWS, VoiceOver, ZoomText, and Dragon, to validate our design decisions.
  • Created high-fidelity prototypes using VA.gov’s design system components, ensuring consistency with other VA digital services and meeting accessibility standards.

The results

As a result of this effort, we:

  • Successfully migrated Ask VA to VA.gov, creating a mobile-friendly product consistent with VA.gov design standards.
  • Redesigned form fields to be more accessible and intuitive for Veterans to use, with plain language improvements significantly enhancing comprehension and trust.
  • Validated future enhancements including automated category suggestions based on similar questions and helpful link recommendations, laying the groundwork for Ask VA to evolve from a simple contact form into a service that actively guides Veterans toward answers.

Team members

  • Tyler Gindraux

Practices used

  • User-centered design
  • UX research strategy
  • Stakeholder engagement and workshop facilitation
  • Concept testing
  • Accessibility testing with assistive technology
  • Plain language content design