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Advanced Application Functionality for Online Printing and Mailing

PosteDigital’s MailingOnline application is an important feature of the United States Postal Service (USPS) website. It enables customers to print and mail cards and flyers via the Web—submitting artwork and mailing lists and selecting colors and paper stock entirely online. Since this is a relatively complex process, making it as easy as possible is vital to success for both the user and for the business sponsors.

Recognizing the importance of the application and spurred by customer feedback calling for improved usability, PosteDigital asked NavigationArts to provide advanced user interface design services to assess the usability of the MailingOnline program, including workflow and interface. NavigationArts was asked to identify areas of inoperability and usability weaknesses, then to create and implement appropriate remedial measures. After the initial project planning step, NavigationArts conducted user interviews to develop functionality recommendations. Those recommendations informed the information architecture that followed, at which point user testing verified usability and suggested alterations. The final result was a highly usable online postal application that distilled complex tasks into intuitive pathways.

Project results included:

• Successful implementation of user-based, user-centric information architecture to a complex online application
• Use of USPS styles in application design
• Use of standards-compliant HTML/XHTML and CSS1/CSS2 style sheets
• Validation to ensure Section 508 compliance for all pages