EBSA Retirement Benefits
Lost & Found
Leading the first PRA-cleared, research-governed 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 constraints, and audit-level scrutiny, while serving a user population often under financial stress.
This case study focuses less on interface design and more on how governance, clarity, 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 governance templates 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 standards within federal UX research.
While the portal serves millions of Americans, the longer-term impact was structural. This work redefined how complex, high-risk digital services could be validated, governed, 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, from discovery through post-launch optimization.
I assumed responsibility for ensuring the program met regulatory, audit, and delivery standards simultaneously, maintaining legal defensibility, research integrity, and national launch momentum without compromising user trust.
My responsibilities included:
Defined and led the end-to-end UX research strategy, including PRA-compliant methodologies.
Authored research protocols, consent language, and validation frameworks.
Acted as primary liaison across OCIO, EBSA, legal, policy, and delivery teams.
Ensured all UX and CX decisions were legally defensible and audit-ready.
Context
This project represented a structural shift in how DOL conducted 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 met immediate delivery deadlines while establishing durable governance 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
This roadmap functioned as both a delivery plan and a risk-management framework, 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.
It demonstrates how UX leadership functions under real constraints, where decisions must be defensible, systems must be audit-ready, and delivery must balance regulatory rigor with user trust.
Although delivered in a federal context, the challenges and solutions mirror those faced by enterprise and regulated organizations modernizing high-risk, mission-critical platforms.