1. Introduction

The Team

For our first group project at Columbia Engineering UX Bootcamp, we were tasked with designing a mid-fi prototype. The problem we decided to solve was creating a one-stop destination for all state benefits given a user’s life situation.

Our team was composed of:

• Tatjana Gall (me)

• Elizabeth Anderson

• Agnes Reed

• Victor Figuereo

Role

UX researchers and designers

Tools

Figma, Figjam, Google suite, Zoom, Otter.ai.

Deliverables + Timeline

Three weeks to produce mid-fi prototype. Had to show our work through project proposal, research plan, testing notes, testing recordings, competitor analysis, and design thinking process.

The Problem

To everyone’s frustration, government benefits websites can be poorly organized or designed; too much information, not the information you need, information without navigation, etc. The result is: state residents don’t know which benefits they qualify for. How might we provide state residents access to tools that improve their quality of life and help them plan for the future?

The Solution

An app that provides users with a customized experience to search and apply for state government benefits.

We began by thinking about the proto persona of a user and jotting them down on sticky notes.

Hypothesis Statement

We hypothesize that most American adults have limited prior information regarding which state services they qualify for. We presume that despite the lack of awareness, individuals are greatly interested in accessing these benefits.

Interview Plan

Written before we began interviews, these were our self-directives:

Objective: Our team will conduct interviews to get both quantitative and qualitative research to discover the struggles users face while attempting to obtain benefits and services through the state in which they reside. We hope to create a tool that makes it easier for residents to be more informed and increase their quality of life.

Methodology: Five interviews will be conducted to collect research over zoom or in person. 

Participants: The individuals in this study are those who fit our proto-personas. We recruited people from varying age groups to help us garner different perspectives.

Full transcripts.

Our team launched into organizing the interview responses and working to extract useful feedback. Organically, several categories formed, mainly reflecting the nature of the interview questions.

In the analysis, we could begin to see that many interview subjects understood that a wealth of resources existed, however, they had, self-proclaimed, low familiarity with the offerings.

Empathy Diagram

Using the responses, our team separated behavior from belief and sentiment. A clearer picture of the pains and gains began to emerge.

Due to lack of funding and appropriate human resources, government benefits websites are poorly organized and designed. The result is that citizens are turned off and reluctant to visit the sites, even when it’s to their own benefit. Based on our interviews, people are eager to know more about the services available to them in their state of residence. How might we create an application that will provide residents information on how to improve their quality of life and plan for their futures without turning them away over fears of data breaches and wasted time?

We delved into a market comparison. Four of the five sample competitors performed poorly, but one was excellent. Format was SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity, and Threat) breakdown.

Anticipating how Jasmine would gain the most benefit from the app and what an ideal user experience could look like, we plotted out a Journey Map to take into account the different stages of the experience.

I Like

• Easy to use and visually appealing interfaces.

• Gathering information about services that benefit me.

• Convenience.

• Feeling safe.

• Feeling equipped to deal with my responsibilities.

I Wish

• I did not have to visit the office to apply for benefits/services.

• There was one place I could save information about benefits that are of interest to refer back to. 

• There was someone I could talk to.

I Wonder

• How can I work with my state to create benefits/services that cater to …?

• How can I ensure my data is safe?

• If I can find out what benefits different states offered with my demographics.

• If a legal representative can be present or accessible while inquiring and/or completing applications.

The Feature Prioritization Matrix got our team on the same page when it came to making final decisions of which key features to move into implementation.

Next up, building the product!

Wireframing

When the team re-convened and compared sketches, some similarities in thought began to appear. Here you can see an overlap in imagining the Customization tool for the benefits search, using a dropdown UI element.

After prototyping our low-fi app in Figma and adding interactivity, we were ready for a quick round of tests. We ran sessions with three participants and gave them two tasks: to complete the onboarding and to use the benefit finder feature.

Testing Results

The Task completion rate was 100%, however our System Usability interview yielded us an average System Usability Score (SUS) of 86.25. We understood that users needed more information and better labels to minimize confusion and gain more comfort.

We had some plans for iterations before the testing and our users helped us decide what to prioritize, and also made of aware of some blind spots. These were the changes we made:

• Increased visibility and understanding of the Benefits Finder feature on the homepage.

• Pared down and swapped icons in the Bottom Nav Bar.

• Made the splash animation slightly longer.

• Added Apple sign up/login feature.

• Added more context on the “Save to Profile” modal.

• Adjusted language throughout to be more literal.

• Through the user testing process, we learned that things that seemed obvious to us may not be that obvious to the users.

• We had success with defining style components before prototyping collaboration began, minimizing the need for revision.

• We were lucky to have testers that were vocal about their frustrations. That pushed us to step away from what we thought was right, and design for them.