Guardian Connect and Get Set Go Guardian

Human-Centered Design project for California's department of social services

When critical software is not intuitive, users get frustrated and want to find information easily so they can do their job.

When people are really busy, they want to stick with their old business process that they know works, so that they can get their job done quickly.

The Community Care Licensing Division of the California Department of Social Services implemented new software for background checks in 2021. The software, Guardian, has been very unpopular with users and CDSS receives numerous complaints. At the same time, most facilities have not started using it, and so CDSS employees are having to run two different business processes at the same time. They currently receive so many calls to their help line that they have had to limit the hours to 8 am – 12 pm so their employees also have time to process background checks.

CA DSS Goals:

get more facilities using Guardian
improve user satisfaction

DSS Limitations:

DSS does not have the ability to change to a replacement software solution and cannot easily make changes to Guardian itself.
They are limited in their ability to purchase new software, so ideally any solutions would be using tools they already have.

Process

Secondary ResearchWho are the users and potential users of Guardian?

User Demographics

The vast majority of users are female, underpaid and under high stress. English is not their dominant language.

Primary ResearchInterviews gave us insights in users' problems with Guardian, and why non-users are reluctant to implement.

Digital board game to learn tasks and feelings

Empathy Probe

I created a board game style empathy probe to gain information about users, their tasks and procedures, and how they feel about everything. It was a good starting point for conversations that lead to insights.

Themes and InsightsOur interviewees gave us "aha" moments of insight!

Themes

We find overarching themes of Time, Responsiveness and Communication. Community Care Licensing has a lot of opportunities to address these themes even within the project limitations.

ThemesWe defined the scope of the project through addressing the insights.

How Might We

How might we make it easier and more inviting for users and non-users to get information and training about Guardian?

InspirationInspiration informed ideation leads to effective designs.

Guardian Problems: Existing Users are frustrated and new users feel intimidated and reluctant to implement. Three pronged solution: Guardian Connect + Get Set Go Guardian + Guardian Learning

Guardian Connect, Get Set Go Guardian and Guardian Learning

Guardian Connect is a web interface to give users better and easier access to information about Guardian. Get Set Go Guardian is a tutorial and a campaign promoting it. My colleague, Kevin Stevenson, created Guardian Learning which is the library of help videos geared for learning in small pieces. Each of these projects could be implemented separately but if combined together they will create a synergistic effect and DSS will get more mileage from them.

Solutions:

XD Presentation

Presentations of Guardian Connect and Get Set Go Guardian Solutions