Universal Service Administrative Co.
A case study of digital transformation
The Universal Service Administrative Company is a $10B not-for-profit focused on bringing broadband to unserved and underserved communities. USAC is responsible for enacting policies dictated by the FCC. Historically USAC was known for being a "black box" - not responsive to the needs of its stakeholders and for developing obtuse and complicated transactional systems. I was brought in to implement the collective vision of the FCC chairman, USAC's CEO and VP of Stakeholder Engagement to elevate USAC to being a more user-centered digital organization and to change the way they interacted with their stakeholders - schools, libraries, rural healthcare clinics, disadvantaged consumers - and telecomm companies like Verizon and AT&T.
The Challenge?
How do you refocus an organization from thinking mainly about “compliance” with complicated FCC regulations to one that is invested in the success of their stakeholders and is truly user focused?
As the new Sr. Director of Experience for the Stakeholder Engagement team, my first step was to develop a design competency and practice within the organization. When I first started, there was the rudiments of a design group who had operated in a reactive "service bureau" model - responding to program requests. There were also only 2 UX designers in an organization of over 300 developers - and they didn't even know each other existed until they were brought under the Stakeholder Engagement team. I started by reorganizing the existing team members into a Design and UX group - new broader competencies for the organization. I grew a 5 person team into a 15 person team that proactively developed and evangelized design, content and experience standards.
While I was building my teams, I took a top-down and bottom-up approach to teach and evangelize the role of design in product development. I worked across the organization’s program and IT leadership to understand and align with their business objectives, and to explain how good design practices can ultimately lead to more successful outcomes for their programs. I deployed my team to develop grass roots connections across the organization to do the same with their counterparts in the programs and in IT.
I directed and guided brand, UX, and design consistency with the new brand and brand standards across digital, video, and print, as well as in our new office.
I launched and led the rethinking and rearchitecting of the USAC website. As part of that process, we partnered with IDEO for an ethnographic research study to understand user needs, the first study of its kind at the company. I advocated to the board, FCC, and company leadership the importance of user research to frame up a new way of thinking about and talking to stakeholders. With IDEO we developed a prototype website to communicate this new approach, as well as new digital and content standards.
Working across teams, I established a design system, Indigo, to create rigor and consistency across all digital touch points. By collaborating with the IT team, we developed a shared sense of ownership and alignment.
Through a rigorous, Agile process my team expanded on the user research and defined and executed on a product roadmap leading to the successful launch of the new USAC website. One of the key challenges was to clarify the roles/outcomes and requirements for each of the key Programs - E-Rate, High Cost, Rural Health Care and Lifeline - by creating a consistent visual language and content strategy across the programs. The key Service Provider audience needed to be clearly identified and provided with a defined pathway to the information they specifically needed. Additionally, all the content on the site was restructured and re-written to align to federal plain language standards.
And I introduced and stewarded the awareness and growth of Design Thinking to the organization through “teach by doing” workshops.
