NRC previews website redesign

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission showed the public a draft of its redesigned website on April 22 and asked for feedback before a planned summer launch. (fedscoop.com) The agency said in an April 14 notice that the 90-minute webinar would preview planned updates to NRC.gov and collect comments on how people use the site now. The session ran from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Eastern on April 22. (nrc.gov) Scott Flanders, the NRC’s chief information officer and chief AI officer, said the redesign project officially started in January 2026 and that the agency expects to launch the new site in the summer. During the webinar, the team showed a prototype homepage that had already been reviewed by staff for accessibility and presentation. (fedscoop.com) A federal website redesign is mostly a rebuild of navigation, labels, search paths and page templates so visitors can find forms, rules and updates without knowing the agency’s internal structure. Flanders said the NRC’s goal is a site that is “modern, accessible, intuitive” and aligned with the U.S. Web Design System, the federal government’s standard design framework. (fedscoop.com) (nrc.gov) The NRC’s website is a working tool for reactor operators, license applicants, state regulators, researchers and members of the public looking for inspection records, licensing documents and meeting notices. The agency said it wanted to hear directly from stakeholders before launch so comments could shape the redesign instead of arriving after cutover. (nrc.gov) (fedscoop.com) Inside the agency, the Office of the Chief Information Officer began recruiting a cross-agency focus group on January 8 for weekly sessions over three months. The memo said participants would review wireframes, flag pain points and help shape the final product, with the discovery phase starting in mid-January and the broader effort beginning by the fourth week of that month. (nrc.gov) Flanders said the website work is being handled by the CIO’s office with support from a cross-agency group of subject-matter experts. He also said the agency is using contractor Riva Solutions to move its content management system to a newer version while the redesign moves ahead. (fedscoop.com) The website project sits inside a wider NRC technology push that extends through the end of fiscal 2026. In October 2024, Flanders said the agency had already eliminated all legacy IT systems, even as it kept looking for cheaper ways to modernize without a working capital fund. (fedscoop.com 1) (fedscoop.com 2) This is not the NRC’s first attempt to rethink its public site. A 2007 agency action plan proposed a two-phase redesign costing about $1.5 million to $2 million and described the work as the start of “continuous, incremental improvements” to navigation, content and accessibility. (nrc.gov) The current effort uses the same basic playbook with a shorter runway: show a draft early, test assumptions in public and make changes before the switch flips this summer. (fedscoop.com)