Sunlight Labs

When redesigning the Department of Labor website I tried to put myself in the shoes of an average citizen, and what information they might seek when coming to this site. I believe the two primary objectives of the site are to provide important statistics and data on the state of the American workforce; and to be a valuable resource for those attempting to find work. These two priorities were forefront with every design decision made.

The current Department of Labor website, presents two major challenges for the user: the hierarchy of the navigation is hard to decipher; and the average user may find the information and its organization hard to digest quickly. The navigation item with the most dominance in the header is institutional, but the navigation that better serves the citizen is arranged in a "browse by Topic" area under the main carousel. It occupies a lot of real estate and has no visual indication of importance or of being global navigation.