U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: Forms Digitization Guide

Digitizing paper forms at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was taking dedicated forms teams 3–9 months per form—with no clear playbook, inconsistent processes, and limited knowledge sharing across teams. To help teams across the VA digitize a backlog of over 260 paper forms in compliance with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA), the researchers on my team conducted a foundational study to inform a best practices guide for digitizing forms.  I was tasked with co-authoring the guide and joined the project during the study’s synthesis phase. The findings from the study would become the foundation of the Forms Digitization Guide.

The challenge

While digitization efforts were already underway, there were major gaps in knowledge across teams:

  • What does the full digitization process look like?

  • Why do teams often reinvent solutions instead of following standards?

  • How can recurring pain points and blockers be avoided?

  • Can a playbook address known issues and others revealed in a study?

Our team suspected that siloed knowledge, misaligned stakeholders, and inconsistent tools were slowing teams down, so they set out to investigate.

My role

UX Designer & Strategist

Tools used

  • Zoom – remote interviews and workshop facilitation

  • Mural or Miro – collaborative whiteboarding and synthesis

  • Confluence – documentation, guide writing, and internal coordination

  • Slack – team communication and informal insight gathering

  • Forms Library & VA.gov Design System – reference for fact-checking and context

Skills applied

  • Qualitative Research – workshops, team interviews

  • Insight Synthesis – pattern identification, sticky analysis, thematic coding

  • Cross-functional Collaboration – designers, engineers, PMs, stakeholders

  • Service Design Thinking – mapping processes, stakeholder needs

  • Content Strategy – co-authoring clear, usable guidance

  • Accessibility-centered strategy

Goal

The goal was to untangle the often murky and inconsistent process of form digitization and turn that clarity into a single source of actionable guidance for use across teams at VA whose core task is to digitize forms.

Process

Research and synthesis phase

  • The research team conducted 7 cross-functional workshops with 33 participants

  • Teams included 7 Veteran-facing and platform teams

  • Participants included designers, engineers, product managers, and other delivery team members working directly on digitizing VA forms

  • Over 500+ insights were captured and synthesized

  • During synthesis, I collaborated with researchers to identify recurring themes, systemic barriers, and successful strategies employed by teams that’d managed to navigate the process more efficiently.

Collaborative authoring phase

  • Using the study's findings, we co-authored a best practices guide targeting both new and existing teams, as well as team members who needed to onboard quickly.

  • Working in Confluence, we tackled one section at a time, starting with an outline, evolving it into a template to create consistency and structure for each phase.

  • We researched, fact-checked, revised, and invited the participants from the study to review our guide for accuracy.

  • We invited members of the Content and Accessibility teams to review, and eventually made our way through the Governance process for publishing.

Result

What we learned in the research study

The study uncovered critical insights, including:

  • Inconsistent Processes: Every team had its own way of digitizing forms. There was no single path or shared playbook.

  • Siloed Communication: Teams often lacked direct contact with stakeholders or downstream processors, leading to rework and unclear requirements.

  • Tooling & Library Gaps: Many teams struggled with the Forms Library, either due to outdated patterns or unclear implementation guidance.

  • Lack of Institutional Memory: Teams knew others had tackled similar challenges—but past efforts were poorly documented and hard to access.

We also learned that despite these challenges, teams placed strong trust in the VA Design System and were eager for resources that could help them standardize and speed up their work.

Completion and Publication of the Guide

The finished product, “A Guide to Digitizing VA Forms,” offers:

  • Clear process phases and milestones

  • Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

  • Centralized tools, resources, and real-world examples

  • Resources to help teams start faster and stay aligned with VA’s digital standards

By connecting fragmented institutional knowledge into one cohesive narrative, we equipped teams to approach digitization more confidently and consistently, ultimately helping the VA deliver services to Veterans faster and more efficiently. 

“A Guide to Digitizing VA Forms” was published and has been handed over to new owners to maintain and build upon. It can be found in the VA Platform developer documentation site, as well as referenced in the VA Design System form components overview.

  • "This is so great. Thank you to everyone that worked on this. This work helps levelset new teams as they come on board and helps move form digitization faster."

    - VA Forms Accessibility Expert