Policy & Practice June 2018

have to usher tired and hungry children with them to the service center. However, despite their diver- sity, their needs are common and relatively simple: � They need an easy, clear path to help. � They need the ability to choose the channel they used to interact with the agency, including smartphone, desktop, in person, or on paper. � They need to know upfront what was involved in the application process and get answers to questions such as, “How long is this going to take?” and, “Can I save and resume this process later, or should I not start at all if I can’t stay for the duration?” � When they are finished with the online application, they need to know what comes next in the overall path to help. Understanding these needs, which become obvious only through firsthand observation with the users, helped the GHHS team discern the kind of user experience the product designers needed to create to meet these needs. “ Hosting the designers in our centers was eye opening for them. Feedback that we had provided over the years that lived on lists, teed up as possible enhancements, became real as they watched clients struggle through the application. Simple things like the size of the clickable space inside a radio button or the need to reduce text through better use of ico- nography became very real. For instance, we learned that close to 100 percent of the time a client will ask a facili- tator if their submission is successful, until you add a giant green check mark and an exclamation point! ” —Lauren Aaronson

Over the last three years, faced with rising caseloads and static resources in the SNAP program, the agency decided to invest in a new service delivery model. The goal was to shift the client interaction from a heavily bricks and mortar, in-person experience to a more self-directed service model using new digital channels, including an online portal that uses IBM Curam Universal Access. Called ACCESS HRA, the portal is designed to provide an improved client experience and to reduce foot traffic at their service centers. In addition to online applications for SNAP, the portal allows a client to view more than 100 real-time case-related “ The efforts at DSS have been very successful. Seventy-five percent of SNAP applications are submitted online and foot traffic in the offices has been reduced by 30 percent. Throughout this process, we gained some valuable insights and became acutely aware that in order to fully achieve our goals, we needed to increase the usability of our digital tools and needed to address the fact that the web portal . . . did not work well on a mobile device. ” —Lauren Aaronson, Deputy Commissioner, Office of Business Process Innovation, DSS

data points, including case status, account balances, and e-notices. IBMWatson Health™ was well suited to partner with the city to address these needs, with 42 design studios around the world and 1,600 formally trained designers. The Watson Health Government Health and Human Services (GHHS) team is tackling the most difficult chal- lenges facing our customers, applying human-centered design and agile development practices across our products and services, to enable us to greatly enhance the value we provide to our customers and their clients. Universal Access is a social enter- prise management platform that is used to connect people to social services across five countries in eight different languages. Government services accessed with Universal Access run the gamut from disability benefits to income support to food assistance to health insurance. The GHHS team engaged in a partnership with DSS to help solve the depart- ment’s pain points—and do so in a scalable way that would maximize the value delivered across the entire GHHS customer base. In order to achieve this mission, the team agreed on three core values that would enable them to push the bound- aries in terms of user research, product design, and software development: � Observe, listen, understand � Build, measure, learn � Influence over control Observe, Listen, Understand The DSS invited the GHHS team to use their PC banks, available at 15 service centers, as user-feedback labs to help gain a better understanding of people’s needs as they interact with the government online. A multidisciplinary team comprised of a product manager, designers, and architects traveled to New York to spend time with people as they went through the process of applying for benefits at these service centers. The team observed, listened, and very clearly understood their needs as a result. So, what did they learn? That all kinds of people find themselves asking for help. Some don’t speak English, some have low literacy levels, others

Claire McLoughlin is the Principal Offering Manager at IBMWatson Health, Government Health and Human Services.

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Policy&Practice June 2018