Shannon McHarg

That means I observe and talk with people who use products and then design them to meet the needs discovered. I'm currently doing this work at the U.S. Department of Labor in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. I joined public service because I wanted to solve problems that matter at scale, and being in the federal government has given me many opportunities to do just that. During my time in government, I have regularly drawn upon my 20 years of experience bringing user experience to large, bureaucratic organizations. 

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The highlight of my public service career has been working with the Open Data, Design, and Development team at the Department of Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue. We were a small agile team and were able to effect a lot of change with few resources. We owned an open data site, revenuedata.doi.gov, that we designed using user-centered design practices. We also redesigned the agency's main website, onrr.gov. We brought it out of Dreamweaver into an open-source CMS using user-centered design practices, breaking down many organizational silos in the process. Seeing the new onrr.gov launch after 2 years was a proud moment. I'm also proud of that team's blog because it allowed us to spread what we learned across the government. Sharing best practices and successes is key to solving problems on a large scale.

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