It started with a mandate:

To answer this mandate from key stakeholders, I decided to ask: What did we already know?

Using Google Analytics, I was able to get quantitative insights on a user’s behavior.

This helped paint a better picture for stakeholders, and most importantly: narrowed the scope of research. The menu and taxonomy became a lower priority.

Instead, we focused on the content people access and the resources itself.

Next: to help advocate for user research and understand limitations in our database, I led a heuristic analysis workshop with the entire team (5 raters). As a less-resource intensive option, this analysis was great to help train the team to think about the users. I used a reputable source for the heuristics to help brush off the initial skepticism.

Areas of Opportunity: How can we increase the learnability, accessibility and credibility?

From the HE, I developed a semi-structured interview protocol aimed to answer these 3 research questions:

1. How do users primarily interact with PA211?

2. Do they feel like they are able to achieve their intended goals?

3. How do they feel about accessing the resources? Does it help them?

For the interview modality, I decided to do a phone call due to these reasons:

• Majority of 2-1-1 users are accessing through a phone.

• Computer/Webcam video call would not be accessible to vulnerable populations.

• Easiest to contact users from across the state.

The analysis of interviews were the biggest opportunities to collaborate. By having the anonymized transcripts, and insights to directly show to stakeholders allowed a pivot towards the users, within their subject matter expertise on the field.

Design Implications:

From the two major insights of the interviews, with collaboration from key stakeholders and external vendors, we were able to make two quick design changes. Most importantly, in a resource-constrained organization, this is a light fix!

Eligibility-driven Resource Listing: As a resource for call center professionals, their priority was “how can we help people intake?” but the general public has a different question: “Am I eligible?”

By redesigning the listings, users should be able to find eligible resources faster than before!

Oh! And a Bonus!

Collaboration: By working with stakeholders throughout the analysis process, we were able to quickly pivot a chat-bot, that was in development at the time, to directly address the insights for the 2-1-1 users.

📈 Impact:

📑 Learnings:

After implementing the design changes:

Increased 211 website traffic by 60% from initially 37,000 monthly visits to over 50,000 monthly visitors.

There were three major learnings:

• Mixed-methods creates a strong story for key stakeholders.

• Collaboration in every step = great impact.

• Meet the subject-matter experts where they are at:

  • Originally, I had scheduled 10 participant interviews, however, I had an extremely high rate of “no-shows” (80%). However, then I would receive a call at 9PM asking to do the interview. (apologizing due to circumstances such as jobs, or single parenting, etc.) Due to the impromptu call, I used OBS on my computer to record the interview audio of my phone, instead of the originally planned audio recorder. Flexibility and quick thinking is key!

  • Next time, I would have more flexible scheduling or “drop-in office hours” type of availability when conducting interviews.

If I had time…

• I would love to evaluate how these design improvements helped PA 211 (Ex: Evaluate usability time to task for improvement geography search features.)