Ontario Digital Service

Co-op, Service Design, Ontario Government
Duration
12 months
Sep 2023 - Aug 2024
My role
User Research
Interface Design
Ontario Design System Team support
Heuristic Evaluation
Stakeholder Engagement
Change Management
Agile Methodology
About my co-op
Ontario Digital Service (ODS) acts as a design agency within the government and provides user experience guidance and support to ministry teams across the government. Through iterative research and design principles, our team of design and research professionals ensures digital products and initiatives meet digital service standards so that we can provide simpler, better, and faster services to the people of Ontario.

I was part of the User Research Lab which collaborates with ministry partners to provide thought leadership and advice on the topics of service and product design.

What we do:- conduct user research to understand the problem and empathize with users
- build prototypes to illustrate design concepts
- continuously test existing services with users and iterate on them
Project 1
What is this about?
We collaborated with the Archives of Ontario to improve their current website and the way users search for collections. The AO holds many types of records, such as Vital Statistics, Aerial Photographs, and many more. Among them, Justice and Court requests are the most popular ones based on their customer service ticketing system data.
Our goal is to understand if there are gaps in users' knowledge during the process of requesting these records and help streamline it so that they do not have to go through a painful process of looking for information and getting lost in the vast sea of documents and guides.

Since we only had 4 months to work on the project, the team decided to focus on divorce records, which is one of the most requested legal documents based on analytics and a redesign of the current search process has been initiated by a staff member.

How can we smooth out the request process to reduce client-staff touchpoints?

Background research
We had multiple meetings with assistant archivists and customer service branch staff members to understand how users navigate when looking for their divorce records.

Since multiple variables (year of the file, whether users have all of the information on hand, etc.) would change the outcome of the search, we want to provide custom guidance based on their own cases.

Visualizing the different endpoints for users through a conditional logic flow helped us decide on the content of the redirection guidance and point users to the right department for further assistance.
Figma prototype
We built a functional prototype of a web-based tool to replace the current request process, which involves a lengthy finding aid on a PDF document and requires contacting AO staff directly through email or phone.

We then planned, recruited, and conducted semi-structured interviews and usability tests with clients who have made requests before to validate our proposed solution.
Currently
Our Vision ✨
Present findings and refined prototype
Based on the feedback collected, we shared synthesized findings and highlighted the next steps to our partner team who were very happy with our result.

Here are the several changes made based on users' comments
Adopting a more helpful tone with clear instructions.
Help users feel more confident starting the form even if they do not have all of the information.
Combining 2 questions into 1 to reduce the number of questions and avoid user fatigue.
Including hint texts when asking for information (e.g. names of parties, year of the record, location, etc.) from users helps them understand the purpose of providing them.
Make sure they don't miss the submit button at the very end of the form by adding a blue page alert.
Project 2
We got a request!
The ministry team was building a data-visualizing dashboard on PowerBI and they hoped to get UX/UI guidance from the XD Lab.
The dashboard serves as an informative tool to illustrate the impact of employees' work and embrace performance and data as a cultural shift. The ultimate goal is to make it publicly available and showcase frontline workers' contributions.

"Emily and Yanch saved us from having a clunky, visually unattractive, and overall ineffective digital dashboard. Their superb UI designs helped my team to tell our organization’s story and achievements in a truly compelling way. UI is not my team’s strength. The excellent advice from Emily and Yanch helped my team to learn and grow from their experience collaborating with them.

They are very approachable, knowledgeable, and have great attention to detail. When we have questions, Emily and Yanch would go over that and explain things in a clear, jargon-free language. They saved my team and I hassle and stress and allowed us to focus more energy into putting on a great dashboard for our large organization."

- Rachelle Mandel
Senior Manager Ministry of the Solicitor General
No questions are dumb, keep asking when in doubt
People in the government are all very helpful in helping one another grow. Growing up in an Asian society, I used to be afraid of asking questions fearing that I would be seen as the least bright student in the classroom. I would try to figure out the solution myself and was so stressed if I couldn't find the right answer to a question. My work in government has provided me with a safe space to fail and get feedback from experienced designers and managers. Asking questions keeps me open-minded to all of the different approaches when finding solutions.

Learnings and reflections

I have encountered some unexpected situations during participant recruitment and user feedback sessions which have been invaluable lessons for me. I had to respond quickly when older participants were experiencing technical difficulties, find ways to resolve the issues on the spot, and think of ways to better prepare for future situations. We also put in place preventative measures to discourage fake participants from signing up for research studies and lead the discussion with other designers during our Chapter huddle to share and contribute ideas collectively.
There is a lot of work to get UX buy-in and advocacy for user-centric approach in the Government
Working as a designer in the government means there is a lot of advocacy work to make sure ministry partners and leadership understand why we are interacting with end users and how we work iteratively to make sure services are well-maintained. We would hold workshops and invite stakeholders to participate in our design activities as a way to show them the way we work. I have also learned a lot just from observing senior UX designers' approach to getting buy-ins and I see that as an important aspect of my work as a UX designer.
Learned how to deal with fake participants in recruitment and navigate technical difficulties during user sessions

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Communicating a shared sense of caring and community through thoughtful design.