Decision: Replace Resources page with Subjects page

Thing	Info
Relevant features	Resources page, internal documents, combined search
Date started	2024-01-26
Date finished	2024-02-13, although still refining the order of stories
Decision status	Complete
Summary of outcome	We'll replace the resources page with the "Find by Subject" page and upgrade our combined search page to use our better search index. Then we'll build the minimum viable filter/sort options on the search page to enable removing the duplicate search feature from "Find by Subject".

Context

We have a page at /resources/ with the following features for policy research in public resources (supplemental content and Federal Register documents):

• Text that explains what we mean by "resources"
• View all public items
• Keyword search (metadata only)
• Filter by related title, part, subpart, or section
• Filter by category or subcategory
• Download CSV of results (all items or filtered results)
• Sort by newest or oldest (or relevance for keyword searches)
• Apply multiple filters, such as searching by keyword within a category

Summary of user research about the Resources page from June 2023 (requires login).

Core questions

We want to remove this Resources page and replace it with our "Find Policy Documents" page (aka our subjects page), while providing improved relevance and filters in our site-wide search ("combined search"). What do we need to do before we can remove the Resources page?

What we know

According to our analytics, our users rarely search using the resources page. Instead, they use our "combined search" page (available from the top-right search box). This lack of use may be partly because the resources page has a vague name.

We believe that offering a way to navigate by subject ("Find Policy Documents" page) and a better search experience (in the existing "combined search" page) will be more helpful than continuing to offer this page.

We know we need to offer a "Find Policy Documents" page that does not require logging in, and we need to link it from the navigation header.

Value of features and whether we're replacing them

Text that explains what we mean by "resources"

We may want to offer a context statement on the "Find Policy Documents" page.

View all public items

This is probably not important. When we did some user research about our homepage, people tended to not find the "recent" sections very helpful (although they didn't mind them).

Keyword search (metadata only)

We will offer much better keyword search via the revised "combined search" page.

Filter by related title, part, subpart, or section

This is not as useful as we expected it to be. We'd like to offer a way to filter by title and part in our revised "combined search" page, although lower priority than other filters.

Rebecca said: "Every once in a while I use the part filter because, for example, something like 'application' could span a lot of areas, and I was looking for it specifically for eligibility, so I wanted to narrow it down. I rarely use subpart or section."

The "search these resources" button (on regulation subpart sidebars) relies on this feature (including the subpart and section filters), but we're removing that button.

Filter by category or subcategory

We are planning to offer filter by category on the revised "combined search" page. We can include filter by subcategory if needed.

Download CSV of results (all items or filtered results)

Britta uses it (see Export data) but is okay with rebuilding it later.

Sort by newest or oldest (or relevance for keyword searches)

We are planning to offer this on the revised "combined search" page.

Apply multiple filters, such as searching by keyword within a category

We are planning to offer this on the revised "combined search" page.

What we don't know

We haven't asked our users (for example, using our CMS Slack channel) if any of them use the resources page for a particular reason.

We don't have an analytics report that could easily tell us whether people use the filters without searching, although we might be able to make one.

Decision

To remove the resources page, the minimum steps are:

1. ✅ Remove "Search These Resources" button - EREGCSC-2506
2. ✅ Remove the "View More Changes" buttons on the homepage (under the "Recent Subregulatory Guidance" and "Recent Rules" tabs) - EREGCSC-2519
3. ✅ Make the subjects page available while logged out - EREGCSC-2499
4. ✅ Update the path for the subjects page - EREGCSC-2536
5. ✅ Update the navigation header to link to the subjects page - EREGCSC-2520
6. ✅ Remove the resources page code and redirect the resources page path (/resources/) to the new path - EREGCSC-2537

To build a basic "combined search" experience, we need these steps:

1. ✅ Index most supplemental content (other than very large PDFs and anything that refuses to be scraped) - EREGCSC-2445
2. ✅ Index most Federal Register documents EREGCSC-2552
3. ✅ On the current two-column "combined search" page, show full-text results from our Postgres index for supplemental content and FR docs (remove the search.gov results) and include internal results - EREGCSC-2538
4. ✅ On the current two-column "combined search" page, enable showing subject tags on items in results - EREGCSC-2557

To prepare for a good "combined search" experience, we need these steps:

1. ✅ Decide whether we're sticking with two columns or going to one column on "combined search" - EREGCSC-2446
2. ✅ Conduct sessions for search usability EREGCSC-2553
3. ✅ [Spike] Improve efficiency in search endpoint EREGCSC-2558
4. ✅ Upgrade from Vue 2 to Vue 3 - EREGCSC-1765
5. ✅ [Spike] Path to efficient combined search EREGCSC-2584
6. ✅ [Spike] Decide on new "v4" API endpoints EREGCSC-2638
7. ✅ Refactor the resources app EREGCSC-2639
8. ✅ Migrate and delete the file manager app EREGCSC-2641
9. ✅ Refactor the content-search app EREGCSC-2642
10. ✅ [Spike] Test ranking for combined reg + resources search and adjust weights if needed EREGCSC-2567

To build a good subject page experience, which will also become (in modified format) the combined search page, we need these steps:

1. ✅ [Design] Make "find by subject" consistent with combined search EREGCSC-2305
2. ✅ Enable pagination for subject pages - EREGCSC-2403
3. ✅ Add filter by category to subject pages - EREGCSC-2352
4. ✅ Remove type filters from subject page sidebars and add them to centers of subject pages - EREGCSC-2679
5. Remove search box from subject page sidebars and add it to centers of subject pages - EREGCSC-2685
6. Update the sidebar style EREGCSC-2682
7. Update the subject homepage [TBD]
8. Add "sort by" newest/oldest - EREGCSC-2681

To build a good "combined search" experience, we need these steps:

1. Convert existing two-column "combined search" page to one column and enable filtering by document type (regs, internal docs, public docs) EREGCSC-2657
2. Add filter by category to combined search - EREGCSC-2659
3. Add filter by subject to combined search page - EREGCSC-2658

Can be delayed, but will be needed for sustainability:

1. ✅ Retire search.gov integration code and parameters EREGCSC-2541
2. ✅ Auto-index new supplemental content items and FR docs - EREGCSC-2624
3. ✅ Auto-index new internal items - EREGCSC-2255

Nice to have:

1. Re-enable admin and API features for search synonyms EREGCSC-2804
2. Re-enable search synonyms on "combined search" page EREGCSC-2732
3. Add "sort by" newest/oldest/relevance in "combined search" page - [TBD]
4. Make the category options reflect the documents available from the entire set of results, with counts - [TBD]
5. Plan how we'd incorporate filter by title/part into "combined search" (this could cover regulations, internal resources, and public resources) - [TBD]
6. Figure out what a revised "Download CSV" button would do if we built it for the "combined search" page (would it include metadata from regulation and internal resource results?) - [TBD]
7. Figure out the analytics data we want to track, based on some combination of title change, custom events, and custom dimensions that correspond to URL changes and/or filters. - [TBD]

Consequences

The current resource page allows displaying a list of all items in X category (or all items sorted by newest), without providing a query term. Our new designs don't have this. We don't think we need this. We feel confident we can design and build this if we need it.

We need to do a lot of refactoring to make this happen.