Phase II: Discovery and Planning
Last Updated: December 18, 2024
PLEASE NOTE This guide recently transferred ownership and is now maintained by the Veteran Facing Forms team. We’re working through some revisions and encourage you to submit an issue ticket if you have feedback about how we can improve this guide!
💡 Building a Research Base and Starting with Design Artifacts
The goal of this Phase is to build and set up the resources, processes, and planning you’ll need to have in place to begin efficient digitization work.
We recognize that this is already Phase II and that you might feel that there’s still no actual digitizing going on. The next steps we recommend – learning and documenting, building user flows, mapping out needed APIs, and planning out ways of working – should help set expectations with stakeholders and allow your team to work more smoothly and predictably.
⏮️ What Your Team Should Have Completed/prepared Before Starting This Phase
🧑🍳 What Your Team Will Have by the End of This Phase
Document that details alignment with VA form owner/stakeholders requirements, problem statement, etc. for the form
Regular contact and scheduled syncs with VA stakeholders
Use cases for the form
Alignment on creating a digital-first version of the form
Product outline for PO to bring to PO Sync (first step in the Collaboration Cycle)
An understanding of the form
Buy-in from stakeholders on the goals of the digitized form
Documented user journeys and user flows
Identify external integrations
More predictable and implementable steps for the work ahead
⭐ Steps
Discovery & Design Phase
Step 1: Collect and share resources
Gather critical resources (product outline, related research, contact info) into a shared team folder in GitHub
Include links to the Design System, Forms Library, relevant APIs, and schema documentation
Step 2: Perform a gap analysis
Work with UXR and VA form owners to identify where current use cases fall short of real-world user needs
Find or conduct usability testing
Step 3: Draft user journeys & plan for silent failures
Map the before/after user experience across channels — how users find the form, complete it, and what happens after submission
Using your team's zero silent failure plan, document how you'll contact users if processing errors occur
Note: an email address and/or phone number must be required on all digitized forms
Step 4: Identify Design System gaps
Determine whether digitizing this form requires a custom pattern, component, or template not already in the Design System
If so, reach out to the Veteran Facing Forms team and begin the Experimental Design Process with the Governance team if needed
Step 5: Research and build user flows
Identify required content and steps
Work with stakeholders to simplify the form — remove outdated or duplicative content up front
Map existing design patterns and flag where new ones may be needed
Focus on how users move through tasks, not on code or visual design yet
Step 6: Prepare stakeholder meeting materials
Document agendas and talking points for regular VA form owner touchpoints
Bi-weekly meetings are recommended
Use outcome-first storytelling and cancel meetings with no agenda items rather than meeting for the sake of it
Step 7: Identify external integrations
Check http://developer.va.gov for VA APIs that can support form completion (facilities, direct deposit, letter generation, etc.)
Confirm which backend system will process the submitted form using the External Services Integrations Glossary
If the form is a VBA Benefits form mailable to the Evidence Intake Center, the Benefits Intake API is likely the right fit — confirm before proceeding
Step 8: Scope and chunk your work
Plan in stages: define the simplest functionally complete version first, then layer in complex features
Create an Enhancements initiative for harder features
Align stakeholders on the phased approach early
🔮 Continue to phase 3 →
Help and feedback
Get help from the Platform Support Team in Slack.
Submit a feature idea to the Platform.