1. Policy Content at SSA … an update, and sharing questions
Policy Content at SSA using XML and Semantic Metadata
Policy Content at SSA … an update, and sharing questions
Bruce Dull, Director, IT Support Services, Office of Disability and Income Security Programs, SSA
Duane Degler, Strategic Designer, Lockheed Martin/IPGems
SICoP Public Meeting
Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005
Dull/Hynes/Degler for SSA, Lockheed Martin, IPGems, all rights reserved

2. Introduction to the Social Security Administration
The scope of Social Security
National operations with many local offices
Over 1,300 field offices, 140 hearing offices, 100 DDS sites
Overall about 80,000 staff serving 45m+ members of the public
State-managed claim processing for disability
Many relationships with other agencies
New challenges all the time
Baby boom, retirement wave, changing legislation
New electronic case processing
New disability processes
Impact of Katrina on procedures and staff

3. Project Goals Business goals Technical goals
Simpler, more usable instructions for front-line staff
Greater standardization of instructions
Better integration across various types of content
More flexible/efficient authoring process
Technical goals
Effective, usable and accessible interfaces
Metadata-driven information management
More granular, sharable, standards-based content
More modular, responsive architecture

4. Task-Focused Overview
User Challenge
Seeking / Selecting
Info Site
Search
Navigate
Bookmark
… related to what I’m doing?
Doing
Learning
Detailed Info
Step 2
Process
Procedure
Trouble-shooting
Look-up
User
I’m stuck !
List
“Relevant” item 1
“Relevant” item 2 …
“Relevant” item ,623
Help
Support
Alert
Links
Task-Focused Overview
Policy,
memory-jog, summarize, advise
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Help
(technical system advice)
Training
Reference
Links

5. How useful in your work? (5 is highest score)
User Feedback
Recent usability testing
7 states, 12 offices, 73 users
Key messages
Contextual access to information is very beneficial
Simplify, simplify, simplify… but don’t remove the value of context
Make sure that all relevant information is available
How useful in your work? (5 is highest score)

6. Simplifying and Integrating Ontology & Search
More refined use of ontology when presented to users, blending free text and term selection

7. Some Challenges with “Search”
Example search strings for the same information:
“Scan”
“Put paper in EF”
“How do I add additional medical evidence to the electronic folder?”

8. Success with Multiple “Views”
Stylesheet-driven layouts for different user needs … can this be extended to other “adaptive” elements?
Low Vision
Standard View
Print View
Screen Reader

9. Additional Considerations for Blind Users?
Clear, simple vocabulary – mixing JAWS and Braille
More detailed tutorial
Help build a mental model of the site and its behavior … and thus also its vocabulary
Help interpret the many links and selection options on pages
How to be contextual and adaptive to context… and also predictable to users?

10. Questions Related to Ongoing Site Design
How to show… or hide… vocabulary change?
Whose context? (for example, “State”)
The user (staff)
The claimant/beneficiary
The Agency
How to make context identification simpler?
Policy as “context-sensitive help”
Requires a close relationship with transactional systems
Requires a semantic relationship with the data values, not just the data types

11. Questions Relating to Ontology Development
How best to grow the ontology?
Terminology within content
Business context applied to content
What is the role of concept extraction?
Short-term… and ongoing
What level of facilitation is required to get results?
How to create sustainable organizational ownership?
Subject specialists and/or staff ontologist(s)?
Is it possible to “train” someone to think this way?

12. Policy Content at SSA using XML and Semantic Metadata
Thank you
Bruce Dull, Director, IT Support Services, Office of Disability and Income Security Programs, SSA
Duane Degler, Strategic Designer, Lockheed Martin/IPGems
Dull/Hynes/Degler for SSA, Lockheed Martin, IPGems, all rights reserved