Drought.gov's New Citizen-Centered Website
Redesigning the nation's drought information hub to help communities understand drought risk and make informed decisions.
The Challenge
Drought affects communities, agriculture, water resources, ecosystems, and local economies, yet the information needed to understand drought conditions was spread across hundreds of pages, tools, datasets, and agency resources.
The existing experience made it difficult to find relevant content, understand available resources, and navigate the breadth of information provided by the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).
As part of a multidisciplinary team, I helped redesign the experience to make drought information easier to find, understand, and act on, transforming a complex collection of resources into a more intuitive and citizen-centered platform.
My Work
User Research: Wrote user research plans; conducted diary studies, surveys, card sorting, and Value Proposition Canvas exercises
Design: Branding, color palette, typography, style guide, user journey map, affinity map, wireframes, mock-ups, digital design system, data visualizations
Collaboration and Project Management: Coordinating the design & development process, facilitating design critique and workshops, and
working as part of an Agile development team
My Role
In-house designer and web content manager at NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System
Our Team
Program Manager
2 Developers
2 GIS Specialists
UX/UI Designer (me)
Software
Balsamiq
Adobe XD
U.S. Web Design Standards
Section 508 Accessibility
Drupal
Google Analytics
Optimal Sort
CrazyEgg
Key Outcomes
A website that takes into account what users need and offers simple, intuitive navigation.
Making Complex Climate Data Accessible
Translated technical drought indicators, forecasts, and impacts into an experience that could be understood by both experts and the public.
Supporting Better Decisions
Created clearer pathways to information that help communities, water managers, farmers, and educators understand conditions and respond appropriately.
Building Trust Through Transparency
Improved visibility of data sources, methodologies, and context to increase user confidence in the information presented.
Creating a Unified Drought Experience
Brought together hundreds of pages, tools, maps, and resources into a more cohesive and user-centered platform.
Discovery
Before proposing solutions, we needed to understand how people were using Drought.gov, what information they were looking for, and where the existing experience was falling short.
To build that understanding, I worked with the team to gather insights from multiple sources. I conducted stakeholder interviews with internal experts and partner organizations to better understand business goals, content priorities, and common user challenges. I also reviewed site analytics to identify frequently visited resources, navigation patterns, and areas where users struggled to find information. I also interviewed users representing Drought.gov's diverse audience, including researchers, educators, water managers, and members of the public, to better understand their goals, workflows, and decision-making needs.
Aligning Information with Decision-Making
To align these findings and create a shared vision for the redesign, I facilitated a Value Proposition exercise with stakeholders. This workshop helped us identify the platform's core value, prioritize user needs, and uncover opportunities to better connect people with the information and resources most relevant to them.
Research revealed that users approached Drought.gov with different levels of expertise but shared a common need: quickly understanding drought conditions and identifying relevant information for their region and situation.
To support these needs, we focused on three strategic goals:
Improve discoverability
Help users quickly find relevant information without needing prior knowledge of drought terminology or organizational structure.
Provide clear pathways to action
Connect users with the forecasts, tools, and resources most relevant to their needs.
Create a scalable foundation
Establish a flexible design system and information architecture capable of supporting future content, tools, and partner contributions.
Brand Foundation
Using the U.S. Web Design System as a foundation, I developed a visual language and component library that balanced accessibility, clarity, and brand identity. Alongside a refreshed NIDIS logo and updated visual style, I created reusable patterns and implementation guidelines that enabled developers to build a scalable design system in Pattern Lab and support future growth of the platform.
Creating a Scalable Design System
To support a growing platform, I partnered with developers to create a design system of reusable components, responsive patterns, and implementation standards. The system improved consistency across Drought.gov, streamlined collaboration between design and development, and created a scalable foundation for future features.
Validating the Experience
I conducted moderated usability testing with public users, researchers, and stakeholders to understand how effectively people could navigate the redesigned experience and interpret complex drought information.
The research revealed that users were less challenged by the volume of information than by the effort required to understand and connect it. Visualizations, navigation patterns, and supporting content all played an important role in helping users build confidence in the data and its implications. While participants valued access to detailed drought and climate data, some charts, maps, and indicators felt overly technical or visually dense, particularly for non-expert audiences.
Insights from testing informed refinements to information architecture, content hierarchy, and data presentation throughout the experience. We reorganized content into clearer sections, introduced "On This Page" navigation to support faster browsing, improved scanability through stronger visual hierarchy and consistent card layouts, and surfaced important alerts, actions, and resources more prominently. We also simplified legends and labeling, added explanatory content to support interpretation, improved source attribution and methodology transparency, and refined responsive behaviors and accessibility across devices.
These changes reduced cognitive load, increased trust in the information presented, and helped users more easily understand local drought conditions and trends.
Final Designs
The redesigned Drought.gov experience transformed a complex collection of drought resources, tools, and datasets into a more intuitive and user-centered platform. Guided by research and validated through usability testing, the final designs improved information discoverability, simplified navigation, and made complex climate data more approachable for a broad range of audiences.
The resulting experience helps users more easily understand drought conditions, explore impacts, access relevant resources, and make informed decisions, whether they are farmers, water managers, researchers, educators, or members of the public.
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