BIS Website Modernization
Designing for trust and burden reduction.
The Challenge
U.S. companies are required to review federal regulations administered by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) before exporting goods and technologies. Companies use these regulations to determine license application requirements or restrictions that are critical for upholding our national and economic security.
In order to do this, exporters must reference a series of tables, charts, and dense regulatory text to ensure they're complying with the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). This process is no easy task.
Exporters, from individuals to global companies, all follow the same process grounded in federal regulations. The information is essential and must remain legally precise, but it isn't easy to use nor accessible, especially for those without deep export knowledge.
Together with BIS, we set out to improve the experience of how people understand, follow, and navigate through regulations.
Imagine this scenario:
Maria is a small business owner trying to ship raw materials to her business partner in Peru. At the store counter, she's told that she needs a license to ship her package and is given a government URL to start the process of classifying her items. She clicks through to a massive, seemingly endless webpage full of technical terms, cross-references, and acronyms she's never seen before. There's no search bar, no filters, no guidance. Just the assumption that she already knows what she's looking for, and understands how to self-navigate.
She doesn't. Most people don't.
Our Approach
For People partnered with the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to reimagine how people engage with the Commerce Control List, a key supplement to the EAR.
We conducted user research with exporters and BIS staff to understand where people got stuck; co-designed user flows that work for both seasoned professionals and newcomers; and built a searchable, more mobile-friendly tool that pulls directly from official data via API, instead of the manually created index that exporters previously relied upon.
The result is a more accessible, trustworthy experience shaped by collaboration and grounded in the real needs of those who use it.
The team has repeated this framework for several supplements in the regulations, and plan to continue building on this model by uniting the tools and helpful resources into an exporter journey.
Drupal • React • User Research • Human-Centered Design • Content Strategy • Azure
The Outcomes
Following launch, adoption of the interactive Commerce Control List climbed from 9.9% to 90.1%, a 80-point jump and 8x its share of use.
Other tools on the page also gained ground, rising from 25.5% to 74.5% (CCC) and 37.7% to 62.3% (CCG).
BIS staff use the tool to make more informed decisions on regulatory updates and more easily understand the impacts of their changes across the entire set of regulations.
Users can now move from uncertainty to clarity more quickly and with less frustration. The regulations are the same, but the experience now meets people where they are.
What People Are Saying
The new interactive Commerce Control List kicks ass. Seriously. The ECFR crushes my computer. I was able to refine the 348 "specially designed" categories in all of 5 seconds, where the ECFR hangs and might take 30 seconds to populate the page. Good job!
Loving the changes to the Regulations Section. The interactive tools and getting to jump directly to a certain EAR section. Thank you so much for enhancing this section of the website! Great job!!!
This is so much better than the previous version. I like it, especially the links to the country chart and country groups
The Commerce Control List is looking better. I appreciate the improvements you guys have made.
I can see how these interactive tools would be really helpful for industry.
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