Talking about verification documents at SFDW with Jazmyn Latimer, Service Design Director at Code for America.
“Exploring Design Distortions in Government”
San Francisco Design Week
June 2020
Watch the full SFDW presentation on YouTube
SFDW is an essential week-long city-wide festival that showcases the unique intersection of ideas, design, business & entrepreneurism that makes the Bay Area the birthplace of the future.
With select Code for America colleagues, I sat on a panel to discuss opportunities to improve government programs through people-first research and design methods to assist people with low incomes. I discussed the burden of verification documents in public benefits programs and how governments might eliminate barriers to getting help. What if the government automatically enrolled clients in programs based on information from available data sources?
Discussing the barriers that clients face in using public benefits
Drawing up newspaper headlines to strive toward in this project
Kickoff Workshop with Minnesota Agency Leadership
Leadership from the Minnesota Department of Human Services and County and Tribal Nations
January 2020
This was the initial presentation and workshop that kicked off my team’s work in Minnesota where we built a mobile-first integrated public benefits application.
My team at Code for America worked with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) and several counties to build a benefits application that puts people first. During this kickoff workshop, I worked with my program, product, and engineering colleagues to introduce agency leadership to the “Code for America way” to designing and building people-centered products. I led this 30+ person group through a series of activities to hypothesize existing client barriers and how to ask questions with real clients to see if those hypotheses are supported. Introducing staff to the value of qualitative user research at the beginning of this project provided a solid foundation for ongoing research support and engagement from the state and counties.
Leading workshop participants through a fun introduction activity
Introducing the 2x2 concept of quant-qual, attitudinal-behavioral
Workshop: Introduction to Qualitative User Research
Leadership from the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services & Department of Health
December 2019
Read more about the LA’MESSAGE pilot here
This was a one-off workshop for leaders from both the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services and the Louisiana Department of Health at the end of a two-year engagement.
My team at Code for America partnered with Louisiana to pilot new ways to help people stay on benefits programs in which they are enrolled (think SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, etc.). I conducted iterative and ongoing research with benefits clients and agency staff to inform our product development and evaluate our impact. Agency leadership was so impressed by our work that they wanted to learn how to apply our methods themselves. I organized and facilitated this workshop to introduce department leadership to foundational qualitative research methods. Over the course of 4 hours, we defined topics like in-depth interviews, contextual inquiry, and usability testing, and then practiced some related skills. I administered an evaluation form at the end of the workshop, and the overwhelming response was “more please!”
Facilitating storyboarding activity during Autodesk University workshop
“AutoCAD on the Web: Your Anytime Anywhere Access”
Autodesk University
November 2018
Autodesk University (AU) is an annual conference where creators and users of Autodesk software gather to connect annually. Staff share new product features and also learn from users about how products should adapt to meet their needs.
Over the course of two days, I co-facilitated two workshops at Autodesk University. This was part of ongoing research in support of the design team developing a web-based version of AutoCAD. I used LUMA design thinking techniques to elicit participant input about how our product could best support their needs. During these 90-minute sessions, participants were invited to actively participate in co-creation exercises. For most participants, this was the first time they learned about design thinking. The findings of these workshops were delivered at an all-company meeting.
Explaining facets of mobile web accessibility to participants
“Case Studies in Web Accessibility”
QuasiCon
March 2017
QuasiCon is an annual conference held in Ann Arbor, MI to address pressing issues in Information Science. Presentations, workshops, and a poster session are delivered by students and professionals from across Michigan and neighboring states.
Employing best practices in web accessibility is vital to ensure that all users can access content online. To help front end web developers jump into this important work, my colleague and I led a hands on workshop outlining the value and practice of web accessibility. After providing an overview of the topic and examples of web accessibility in practice, we asked the participants to form groups and evaluate websites together. We assigned each group one website and provided them with documentation to consult as well as tools to use (Color Contrast Analyzer plugin for Chrome, for example). After each team evaluated a website, we regrouped and I facilitated a wrap up discussion. Participants left the session with concrete tools to design accessible websites and evaluate existing ones against established WCAG standards.
Presenting at World Information Architecture Day – Ann Arbor
“From I-75 to the Web: Investigating the Highways of Detroit’s Digital Services”
World Information Architecture Day – Ann Arbor
February 2017
World Information Architecture Day is an international celebration of Information Architecture with localized events. Presentations are selected by a jury.
During this talk, I proposed that there is a deep and important connection between the physical and digital infrastructure of the City of Detroit. I gave the example of streetlights. The City has installed 65,000 LED streetlights across Detroit, lighting up neighborhoods and making the nights safer. Similarly, there is opportunity for further transparency in the digital landscape. Detroiters rely on transparent systems for navigating their streets and paying their water bills and property taxes. Functional, reliable, and transparent digital services are vital for residents of Detroit, just like safe streets.
Presenting Rat Chat to stakeholders in Ferndale, MI
“Rat Chat”
Citizen Interaction Design – Civic Tech Exposition
December 2016
Watch the video of my pitch for Rat Chat
The City of Ferndale, MI partnered with students at the University of Michigan to solve intractable problems facing their city. Rat Chat was one of the products that emerged from this partnership.
When the City of Ferndale didn’t know how to tackle their rat population, they asked my team for help. Specifically, the staff didn’t know how to communicate with the residents about the rats, and residents didn’t know how to get in touch with the City. After robust user testing, our team designed, developed, tested and implemented an SMS bot for residents and city staff to communicate about rats. I presented the bot to citizens and city staff in Ferndale in December, when we first launched the product.