How might be improve access to benefits programs in Pennsylvania, reducing churn?

PROBLEM

After much research, our team learned that the benefits journey is an arduous one, filled with misinformation and long wait times. This leads to many users not receiving the benefits that they deserve.

You can even see this lack of clarity and guidance in the current state of the app
(see right).

INTRODUCING VESPA

A 5-7 minute multi-device screening tool that aims to better inform, encourage, and reach potential benefits in the SNAP application process -
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Try them here!
Mobile Prototype Follow-Up Email

BUILDING EMPATHY FOR BENEFITS APPLICANTS

My teammates and I first set out to better understand who benefits applicants were:

- What demographic were they from
- What problems do they struggle with?
- Opinion on the current application process

We used a variety of research
methods to do this:

FOCUS GROUP

Hearing each individual’s experience and the emotion in their voices made us realize the dire need to access benefits more efficiently.
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Goals
01 Understand experiences with benefits
02 Find what parts of the process are difficult
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Demographics
10+ participants
Single Parents, Students, Senior Citizens

TRANSLATING INSIGHTS

Some Key Insights
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01  Applicants don't want to feel
       reliant on the system
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02 Misconceptions disincentivize        applicants
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03 Societal stereotypes negatively        impact recipients
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We outlined the benefits journey and
found that that most churn occurs b/w
the discovery + application phases

Building a screening process can help reduce misinformation and close
the gap between potential applicants and those that receive benefits.

EARLY SKETCHING + STORYBOARDING

How can we bring additional value to
the screener through voice?

VOICE PROTOTYPING

Coming up with the buckets
of questions for the screener.

SUPPLEMENTING VOICE

Thinking about visual experiences that could improve the experience
with a voice agent

Adding visuals to voice takes away from the simplicity of using voice. Rearranging applicants
as both low-tech and
high-tech to better
serve their needs.

USER PAIN POINTS + FRUSTRATIONS

USABILITY TESTING

Tested: 7 Participants
Overall Experience: UMUX-LITE, NPS

Here’s what users thought...

For usefulness
5.2 out of 7
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For usability
6.8 out of 7

BUILDING TRUST

One core piece of feedback that we received during usability testing was that is was difficult to trust the validity of this tool without a proper brand/connection to govt. tooling.
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WHAT I LEARNED

I had never done conversation design prior and so learning how to apply design principles to a new field of interaction design was extremely challenging. I also learned new tools (Voiceflow + Alexa).

EXPLORE MORE

Master's Capstone Website
Medium

FUTURE STEPS

In the future, I want to make VESPA something usable by advocates. I also want to enable the screening tool to be properly integrated with the application process so it becomes a seamless end to end experience.