The Information Architecture of Military Spouse Architect Licensing

Abstract

The study investigates the information architecture of state central licensing agency and licensing board websites and forms through the lens of accessibility to determine their usability, discoverability, and findability for military spouse licensing applicants. One hundred websites and forms were examples. In addition to the accessibility evaluation, state statutes were examined for providing accommodations to military spouses through comity, reciprocity, temporary licensing, expedited licensure, and enhanced licensure via affidavit. Board policies and regulations were also evaluated to determine the impact of license requirements on portability and whether or not they were made accessible. Findings suggest that despite the availability of a variety of policies to facilitate license portability, most state central agencies and licensing boards have not made these policies accessible. Findings were visualized using Tableau in a series of choropleth maps, histograms and scatterplots.