Building a modern day benefits management system.
Bringing a human centered approach to a product and engineering team tasked with modernizing an outdated system used to manage government benefits.
Our challenge
Our client, a product and engineering team, owns a legacy benefits management system used to assess applications to social services within several states. With limited insight into the context of how the system is used, the team needs to rethink their approach, especially as adjacent modern tools are being introduced by states to address existing pain points.
How might we identify the critical aspects for redesigning the system, prioritizing both short-term improvements and long-term strategic enhancements?
What we delivered
In our deliverables, we pinpointed four key research findings and uncovered 15 opportunities, addressing needs ranging from immediate enhancements to long-term strategic developments.
Additionally, our heuristics evaluation identified 34 findings, providing the foundation to begin educating the product and engineering team on human centered design.
The research recommendations were used to inform the prioritization of the system redesign, including the navigation, search, interactions, flows and key features. Initial usability testing results are promising, showing reduced processing times, improved accuracy, and a decrease in duplicate records.
My role
As the design research lead, I spearheaded the foundational education of the client team, conducted comprehensive research with state employees, provided recommendations on prioritization, and collaborated closely with the design director to transition seamlessly into sprints.
Research themes from qualitative interviews
Example of findings from heuristics evaluation
“This would shed a lot of time off of my processing”
— State employee testing redesign
“Everything in one convenient spot”
— State employee testing redesign