VA.gov single sign-on

Business challenge

VA.gov is the online front door for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) but it often links to other sites for care management tools, which require re-authentication. As one Veteran put it: “It’s incredible the amount of steps I need to take to log in, and it times out every 10 minutes.” I worked with a backend engineering team to implement single sign-on (SSO) for Veterans.

User flow mapping

I began by testing the in-progress SSO experience to identify usability improvements and implement a unified front-end. I mapped out user flows to understand the end-to-end experience and unhappy paths. Documenting the Veteran experience enabled my engineering team to communicate more clearly with the Product Owner, and my analysis helped the Product Owner understand UX gaps and channel work to appropriate contract teams.

Outcomes

Veterans need to sign in less frequently when using VA websites. Inbound SSO is deployed to 100% of production users on VA.gov with a success rate of 98%. The unified sign-in experience is live at va.gov/sign-in/ for use by all VA sites. Read about the launch here.