EBSA Retirement Benefits
Lost & Found
Designing the first PRA-cleared, research-led public digital service at the U.S. Department of Labor
Overview
The EBSA Retirement Benefits Lost & Found Portal is a congressionally mandated public service designed to help Americans locate missing retirement benefits across decades of fragmented records.
I served as the UX Strategy and Research Lead, responsible for defining the research approach, securing regulatory approval, and aligning experience decisions across multiple federal stakeholders for a product operating at national scale.
The work required navigating fixed legislative timelines, strict legal and ethical constraints, and a user population often under financial stress, while establishing a defensible and repeatable model for public-facing UX research inside DOL.
This case study focuses less on interface design and more on how clarity, governance, and defensible decision-making enabled a high-risk public service to function at scale.
Outcomes
Established the first PRA-cleared UX research program within DOL OCIO
Created reusable research templates and processes adopted across subsequent digital initiatives
Informed national launch decisions for a congressionally mandated public service
Strengthened cross-agency alignment around evidence-based design
Advanced accessibility and equity considerations in federal UX research
While the portal itself serves millions of Americans, the longer-term impact was structural. This work changed how complex, high-risk digital services could be user-informed, validated, and improved over time without compromising mission goals or data security.
My Role
I served as the UX Strategy Lead and Research SME across the full lifecycle of the project.
I assumed responsibility for ensuring all UX and CX decisions were legally defensible, compliant, and resilient under audit, while maintaining momentum toward a fixed national launch.
My responsibilities included:
Defined and led the end-to-end UX research strategy, including PRA-compliant methodologies
Authored research protocols, consent language, testing scripts, and reporting frameworks
Acted as the primary UX liaison across OCIO, EBSA, legal, policy, and delivery teams
Ensured accessibility, equity, and ethical research standards throughout execution
Context
This project represented a structural shift in how the Department of Labor approached public-facing UX research.
At the time, no UX research involving the public had been conducted under DOL OCIO without first securing Paperwork Reduction Act clearance, a process requiring formal justification, legal review, and Office of Management and Budget approval before engaging with users.
Additional conditions shaped the work:
A congressionally mandated delivery timeline
Multiple internal stakeholders with differing success metrics
A nationwide user base consisting of a wide spectrum of technological access and ability
A dual-facing system, expected to scale and remain operational long-term
Strategy
Because public-facing UX research at this scale had not previously been conducted within DOL OCIO, the strategy prioritized governance before velocity.
Rather than treating PRA as a blocker, I used it to formalize how UX research could be conducted responsibly and repeatably within a federal environment. The strategy emphasized clarity of purpose, informed consent, accessibility, and methodological rigor, balanced against regulatory feasibility.
Equally important was internal alignment. I focused on establishing shared language, decision frameworks, and documentation that allowed research insights to inform product and policy discussions, not just design outputs.
The result was a research strategy that supported immediate delivery needs while creating durable infrastructure for future public digital initiatives.
My approach emphasized:
Clear articulation of research purpose and scope
Transparency and informed consent in all public interactions
Methods balancing statistical value with regulatory feasibility
Accessibility and plain-language principles throughout
Governance Snapshot
The roadmap below functioned both as a delivery checklist and as a governance mechanism, reconciling congressional mandates, PRA approval cycles, and real-world validation without delaying launch.
Each phase was structured to produce defensible, actionable insights that could withstand legal, policy, and executive review.
Key phases included:
Research planning and regulatory clearance
Evidence gathering and synthesis
Cross-agency alignment and decision support
Experience validation and launch readiness
What This Work Demonstrates
This case reflects how I approach complex, high-stakes digital services: by aligning research, policy, accessibility, and delivery around shared outcomes.
This work demonstrates how UX leadership functions under real constraints, where decisions must be defensible and systems must earn trust over time. Although delivered in a federal context, the challenges and solutions closely mirror those faced by enterprise and regulated organizations modernizing high-risk, mission-critical platforms.