Designing new user flows for USAGOV’s Scams and Fraud wizard
GSA—Public Experience Portfolio
Year: 2023-2024
Due to the nature of government work, certain information may be redacted, names changed and/or technical information withheld.
Navigation
Consumers reported losing more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024.
Scammers are on the rise and fraud attempts increase year over year. Scams are becoming a daily fact of life. Perhaps you can relate if you have seen or heard any of the following within the last year:
- A call from your local police, fire or state department requesting a donation support, all they need is your name, address and banking information.
- A text message from UPS, USPS, or a trusted postal service claiming a package arrived at a customs agency. They suspect contraband has been inserted and are requesting your information to process an investigation and release your package. However, you have not requested any packages in months.
- You received a call from a strange number claiming a family member has been kidnapped. The voice on the phone sounds just like him/her. You call your family member—to your surprise they are safe in the comfort of their home.
- You received a check in the mail and decided to cash it. Now all your savings are gone.
- The IRS sends you a message claiming you owe them money and will arrest you if you do not pay.
Every year, millions of Americans fall victim to scams like these and their variations. From the famous Nigerian prince to the never-ending “can you hear me” calls…we can only expect these attempts to grow as new technologies emerge.
The sad truth: we have all been victims of a scam or fraud attempt.
The Scam Wizard
Origin story
The scam wizard had its origins long before I joined the USAGov team. Originating as a user-facing chatbot, there was an eventual need for creating a more permanent solution with its own landing page and thus becoming a wizard. Historical archives indicate the wizard’s creation around 2022–2023.
When asked regarding the overall impression, many users were very positive about the new experience. Stating that:
- By removing unnecessary wording and creating a clear path, the participants felt calmer and more confident.
- Most participants prefer the scams wizard because it is intuitive, clear, simple, and useful.
The search for answers led to continued improvements.
01 Did users find this page useful?
02 Did people find the right options?
70% of page views on wizard results pages have “other” or “otro” in the URL. This suggests many people aren’t connecting with the specific choices in the questionnaire pages.
03 Is this what users were expecting?
A big audience drop happens on the start page in that about 1/3 don’t make it to the first questionnaire page. Are users confusing scams for complaints? What are they looking for?
Improvements and iterations
Initial changes
- Restructure the initial page to include more information. My aim was to make sure there was language that clearly defined this wizard as a guide and not a reporting agency. I also wanted to make sure they understood what were the requirements of a scam vs. a complaint and provide guidance to users.
- Since most people who are reaching this page may be distressed or frustrated by the scam, I decided to maintain this similar to the content pages—ensuring they do not need to learn where things are and not expect this part of this site to function any differently.
- I added a secondary navigation (sidebar) to reinforce additional links to relevant topics and guide users through the current stage of the wizard. Since this is content consideration, this remains inactive until resources are pulled to it.
- There was confusion regarding certain terms, such as imposter scam vs identity theft scams. My initial attempt was to add a brief description to help guide users in selecting the appropriate choices.
- Based on the research, we noticed people would also associate the scams with how they received them—phone, text, email, etc. To accommodate these mental models, I decided to include them as points of entry to help users.
- Final results pages would have a card (or multiple cards) component detailing steps and directions to report the scam.
- I also decided to include a process indicator within the wizard so our users could know where they were in the process and how many steps were left.
Iteration #1
While most of the changes went in the right directions, there were a few changes required. Since we also knew what was working we decided to shift focus onto the mobile experience. Here are some of the changes we noticed.
- At the time, there was a plan to connect the wizard with a VUI application. The initial proposal did not address the “other” category entry points needed to support development.
- There was no consistent path, making it difficult to place a step indicator. A new IA had to be introduced.
- Accessibility review revealed there would be some complications creating the cards components. Since most of the cards also pointed to the FTC site, it seemed more trouble than what it was worth.
- Card sorting and tree-jack tests also revealed that while the descriptions helped, people were still confused on certain terms.
Final iterations
After another revision, involving accordions on the end screens we opted to simplify the content.
Lessons learned and moving forward
- The government is very interested in “designing for everyone”. This makes accessibility very important and the need to understand it even more so. This project led to be much more knowledgeable on how people may not only view the design but how they will interact with it (be it with assistive technologies or in gray scale) and how they will actually read/skim thru the information.
- I learned that the government moves purposefully. This involves a lot testing, reviewing, and confirming hypothesis before implementing, creating better products in the long-run.
