Accessibility and User Experience Enhancements

We’re thrilled to announce the latest updates to FederalRegister.gov, focused on improving accessibility and user experience on both desktop and small screen sizes. Here are some of the significant changes we’ve implemented:

Accessibility Improvements

Our accessibility enhancements aim to improve text contrast, making content and metadata easier to read. While at its core FederalRegister.gov provides access to published Federal Register documents, we also enrich this content with data from other government sources and label the origin.

• Background colors and labels used to indicate content origins have been updated ensuring they provide proper contrast and adhere to web accessibility best practices. This makes our pages not only more accessible but also visually lighter while retaining information density.
• The font used for document display has been updated to provide a better default weight and increase readability.
• HTML markup has been changed and updated where needed.

User Experience Enhancements

We’ve made several layout changes to simplify the presentation of search and document pages, driven by our goal to make FederalRegister.gov more readable and navigable for all users regardless of screen size.

Search Pages

• Streamlined Layout: We’ve removed the left-side column from the search results page, which previously offered redundant filtering options also found in our advanced search form. This change gives more space to display search results and provide additional context for each matching document. It also enhances navigation on small screens.
• Persistent Filters: Agency and document type search filters are now always visible, eliminating the need to access the advanced search form for these popular options.
  • Prior search box:

    

  • Updated search box:

    

• Enhanced Search Suggestions: We’ve updated the display of search suggestions to make them more prominent and user-friendly. These suggestions help you quickly add specific filters or directly access document references identified in your search terms.
  • Prior search layout:

    

  • Updated search layout:

    

Document Pages

• Focused Document View: We’ve updated document pages to emphasize the text while keeping extracted data and enhanced content easily accessible. Adjustments to background colors make these pages more readable and navigable.
• Consolidated Enhanced Content: The floating boxes with data extracted from the document and other enhanced content have been moved into the utility bar (previously appeared on the right side of the document). This change allows us to better use the full screen width, freeing up more space for reading documents and displaying tables, and improving user experience on small screens.
  • Previous Design and Location of Document Details Metadata:

    

  • Updated design and location of document details:

    

  • Updated design with document details opened:

    

• Upgraded Utility Bar: The utility bar on the left side of the document now supports a larger, extended state with clearly labeled items and a collapsed state displaying only icons. This allows users to hide the labels when not in use or once familiar with the contents, while displaying more relevant content on small screens.
  • Expanded and Collapsed Utility Bar States:

    

Performance

We’ve also addressed numerous performance related items to ensure that FederalRegister.gov renders faster with particular focus on mobile devices that may have limited power and slower network speeds.

We’re confident that these updates will significantly enhance your experience on FederalRegister.gov. Stay tuned for more improvements as we continue to make our platform more accessible and user-friendly!