The Department of Defense has a user experience problem
Summary
Each year, tech companies spend millions of dollars and hundreds of hours enhancing their user experience (UX), making sure that apps, websites, and other products fit the needs and wants of their customers. To truly address the user experience challenge, Department of Defense programs should ingrain user-centered design practices into the culture of software acquisition and bring it into the development process from the very beginning. It does not require a full two-week User Acceptance Testing or a full-scale exercise; rather, it takes a couple hours a week of a warfighter’s time to provide input to critical software. By ensuring that acquisition professionals understand the importance of delivering a product that works well for the end-user, the Pentagon can create systems that not only meet cost and schedule metrics but also provide real value to those who need them the most. Image: US Soldiers, assigned to 82nd Airborne 3rd Brigade Combat Team, train with the Integrated Visual Augmentation System as a part of Project Convergence 2022 PC22 at Camp Talega, California, Oct. 11, 2022.