Bringing Human-Centered Processes to a 27-Year-Old Federal Legacy System Modernization [NDA]
As Lead UX Strategist, my UX discovery & synthesis defined the holistic UX vision for a federal disaster assistance agency's 27-year-old legacy system overhaul. Executive stakeholders called my presentation "excellent" and "raising the bar" — and determined it needed to be presented to 75+ agency staff across multiple internal agency teams to build organizational buy-in for this system-wide transformation.
As Lead UX Strategist, my UX discovery & synthesis defined the holistic UX vision for a federal disaster assistance agency's 27-year-old legacy system overhaul. Executive stakeholders called my presentation "excellent" and "raising the bar" — and determined it needed to be presented to 75+ agency staff across multiple internal agency teams to build organizational buy-in for this system-wide transformation.
Pub Sec
Pub Sec
B2B2C SaaS
B2B2C SaaS
System Modernization
System Modernization
Multiple Clouds
Multiple Clouds
Scenario
My Role
UX Research & Strategy Lead
UX Research & Strategy Lead
Client
US Federal Agency
US Federal Agency
Engagement Length
4 months; cut short due to company layoffs
4 months; cut short due to company layoffs
My Deliverables
Archetypes • Experience maps • Journey map • Heuristic evaluations • Discovery readout • Design concepts and UX recommendations
Archetypes • Experience maps • Journey map • Heuristic evaluations • Discovery readout • Design concepts and UX recommendations
The agency's primary case-management software was 27 years old, fragmented across multiple systems. None of its systems were connected — staff manually copied information between disconnected tools and kept personal notes in word-processing documents just to track their own casework. The mandate was to replace this ecosystem with a modern CRM platform, but the timeline was compressed by external funding and political pressure: once budget was secured, the priority was to spend it and show progress fast, before anyone had done the work of finding out what actually needed to be built.
This was the exact pattern that had derailed previous attempts to fix the system: technical teams and long-tenured agency staff believed they already knew the solution — “we need this because that's how we do things today” — rather than starting from how people actually did their work.
***NDA Case Study: Client names, brand identifiers, and proprietary program names have been anonymized throughout in accordance with NDA portfolio guidance.
The agency's primary case-management software was 27 years old, fragmented across multiple systems. None of its systems were connected — staff manually copied information between disconnected tools and kept personal notes in word-processing documents just to track their own casework. The mandate was to replace this ecosystem with a modern CRM platform, but the timeline was compressed by external funding and political pressure: once budget was secured, the priority was to spend it and show progress fast, before anyone had done the work of finding out what actually needed to be built.
This was the exact pattern that had derailed previous attempts to fix the system: technical teams and long-tenured agency staff believed they already knew the solution — “we need this because that's how we do things today” — rather than starting from how people actually did their work.
***NDA Case Study: Client names, brand identifiers, and proprietary program names have been anonymized throughout in accordance with NDA portfolio guidance.
Scope & Challenges
A 27-year-old, multi-system legacy environment with no unified data model or shared source of truth.
An accelerated, funding-driven timeline that favored building fast over building right.
A subcontractor relationship: the prime contractor held the high-level vision but wasn't involved day-to-day, which meant alignment had to happen largely through the discovery work itself.
Three distinct end-user populations to understand in parallel: agency case/support agents, field inspectors, and disaster survivors applying for aid.
Scope & Challenges
A 27-year-old, multi-system legacy environment with no unified data model or shared source of truth.
An accelerated, funding-driven timeline that favored building fast over building right.
A subcontractor relationship: the prime contractor held the high-level vision but wasn't involved day-to-day, which meant alignment had to happen largely through the discovery work itself.
Three distinct end-user populations to understand in parallel: agency case/support agents, field inspectors, and disaster survivors applying for aid.
Scope & Challenges
A 27-year-old, multi-system legacy environment with no unified data model or shared source of truth.
An accelerated, funding-driven timeline that favored building fast over building right.
A subcontractor relationship: the prime contractor held the high-level vision but wasn't involved day-to-day, which meant alignment had to happen largely through the discovery work itself.
Three distinct end-user populations to understand in parallel: agency case/support agents, field inspectors, and disaster survivors applying for aid.
Team Collaboration
Sole Experience Architect — leading discovery while making the case for UX
I was the sole UX practitioner on this engagement, operating within a Salesforce Professional Services team that included technical consultants, business strategists, engagement managers, and a front-end team already developing requirements in the first couple weeks.
I designed and led the entire discovery process — research planning, interview recruitment, interview facilitation, synthesis, heuristic evaluation, artifact creation, and final readout delivery. I also served as the primary advocate for the human-centered approach with technical directors and agency leadership who were accustomed to building from requirements, not from user research.
MY ROLE: Experience Architect · Research Lead · UXStrategy · Heuristic Evaluation · Synthesis ·Artifact Creation · Readout Delivery
SF TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS: Collaborated on platform capabilities and requirements; I converted many to UX believers through the HCD process and discovery readout.
AGENCY EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS: Primary readout audience; advocates who then requested I present findings across multiple internal teams.
SF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: My interviews with staff across the agency and subsequent readout gave them a foundation and evidence for transformation.
PRIME CONTRACTOR: High-level presence; worked mainly with technical teams.
END USERS INTERVIEWED: Staff included Caller Services Agents, Caseworkers, Inspectors, Field Agents, Managers, Analysts, and Supervisors. I recruited and interviewed Disaster Survivors from the public.
It is rare to find someone who possesses the technical rigor of a practitioner, the thoughtfulness of an academic, and the vision of a true architect. Maile led our co-creation workshops with executive stakeholders with impressive grace and skill. She has a special knack for bringing structure and clarity to the 'fog' of a project, and empowering everyone around her to be part of the creative solution.
Business Strategist, Senior Director, Salesforce Professional Services
Team Collaboration
Sole Experience Architect — leading discovery while making the case for UX
I was the sole UX practitioner on this engagement, operating within a Salesforce Professional Services team that included technical consultants, business strategists, engagement managers, and a front-end team already developing requirements in the first couple weeks.
I designed and led the entire discovery process — research planning, interview recruitment, interview facilitation, synthesis, heuristic evaluation, artifact creation, and final readout delivery. I also served as the primary advocate for the human-centered approach with technical directors and agency leadership who were accustomed to building from requirements, not from user research.
MY ROLE: Experience Architect · Research Lead · UXStrategy · Heuristic Evaluation · Synthesis ·Artifact Creation · Readout Delivery
SF TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS: Collaborated on platform capabilities and requirements; I converted many to UX believers through the HCD process and discovery readout.
AGENCY EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS: Primary readout audience; advocates who then requested I present findings across multiple internal teams.
SF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: My interviews with staff across the agency and subsequent readout gave them a foundation and evidence for transformation.
PRIME CONTRACTOR: High-level presence; worked mainly with technical teams.
END USERS INTERVIEWED: Staff included Caller Services Agents, Caseworkers, Inspectors, Field Agents, Managers, Analysts, and Supervisors. I recruited and interviewed Disaster Survivors from the public.
It is rare to find someone who possesses the technical rigor of a practitioner, the thoughtfulness of an academic, and the vision of a true architect. Maile led our co-creation workshops with executive stakeholders with impressive grace and skill. She has a special knack for bringing structure and clarity to the 'fog' of a project, and empowering everyone around her to be part of the creative solution.
Business Strategist, Senior Director, Salesforce Professional Services
Team Collaboration
Sole Experience Architect — leading discovery while making the case for UX
I was the sole UX practitioner on this engagement, operating within a Salesforce Professional Services team that included technical consultants, business strategists, engagement managers, and a front-end team already developing requirements in the first couple weeks.
I designed and led the entire discovery process — research planning, interview recruitment, interview facilitation, synthesis, heuristic evaluation, artifact creation, and final readout delivery. I also served as the primary advocate for the human-centered approach with technical directors and agency leadership who were accustomed to building from requirements, not from user research.
MY ROLE: Experience Architect · Research Lead · UXStrategy · Heuristic Evaluation · Synthesis ·Artifact Creation · Readout Delivery
SF TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS: Collaborated on platform capabilities and requirements; I converted many to UX believers through the HCD process and discovery readout.
AGENCY EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS: Primary readout audience; advocates who then requested I present findings across multiple internal teams.
SF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: My interviews with staff across the agency and subsequent readout gave them a foundation and evidence for transformation.
PRIME CONTRACTOR: High-level presence; worked mainly with technical teams.
END USERS INTERVIEWED: Staff included Caller Services Agents, Caseworkers, Inspectors, Field Agents, Managers, Analysts, and Supervisors. I recruited and interviewed Disaster Survivors from the public.
It is rare to find someone who possesses the technical rigor of a practitioner, the thoughtfulness of an academic, and the vision of a true architect. Maile led our co-creation workshops with executive stakeholders with impressive grace and skill. She has a special knack for bringing structure and clarity to the 'fog' of a project, and empowering everyone around her to be part of the creative solution.
Business Strategist, Senior Director, Salesforce Professional Services
Pivotal Work
Converting "we already know what to build" into "we needed to see this"
Before my discovery work, the team's plan was effectively to just build what stakeholders asked for — the same reactive pattern that had failed before on previous attempts to modernize individual products in the past. Professional Services technical directors decided that we'd, maybe, “UX it later”.
My research made visible who the end users were, the major challenges and obstacles they encountered daily, and the important tasks that they had to accomplish, including supporting traumatized survivors in their most desperate time of need. The readout reframed the entire conversation around the people the system was supposed to serve, and gave the change-management team a concrete, evidence-based artifact connecting user needs directly to business risk and opportunity.
Speed vs. sustainability. The pressure to begin building was real and legitimate —government funding had been secured, and there was genuine urgency to show value. Inavigated this by framing the discovery phase not as a delay but as a risk reductioninvestment: the cost of user research was trivially small compared to the cost of buildingthe wrong thing at government scale and having to rebuild it, as previous attempts hadrequired.
The readout as a change management tool. I structured the discovery readout not just as a research deliverable but as a persuasion document — designed to convert technical directors and agency staff who had not experienced design thinking into advocates for the approach. The structure moved from observable facts (what we found) to business stakes (what this costs) to opportunity (what we could build instead), with direct quotes from their own colleagues throughout.
What didn't happen: Company-wide layoffs ended the engagement before the design and build phases began. The discovery work was complete; the build work was not. The artifacts and readout remained with the agency as a foundation for those that continued the work.
“[Maile's readout] successfully brought structure and clarity to the mental fog of a complex federal modernization effort, humanizing technical deficiencies through a design-led approach.”
Professional Services Business Strategy Director
Pivotal Work
Converting "we already know what to build" into "we needed to see this"
Before my discovery work, the team's plan was effectively to just build what stakeholders asked for — the same reactive pattern that had failed before on previous attempts to modernize individual products in the past. Professional Services technical directors decided that we'd, maybe, “UX it later”.
My research made visible who the end users were, the major challenges and obstacles they encountered daily, and the important tasks that they had to accomplish, including supporting traumatized survivors in their most desperate time of need. The readout reframed the entire conversation around the people the system was supposed to serve, and gave the change-management team a concrete, evidence-based artifact connecting user needs directly to business risk and opportunity.
Speed vs. sustainability. The pressure to begin building was real and legitimate —government funding had been secured, and there was genuine urgency to show value. Inavigated this by framing the discovery phase not as a delay but as a risk reductioninvestment: the cost of user research was trivially small compared to the cost of buildingthe wrong thing at government scale and having to rebuild it, as previous attempts hadrequired.
The readout as a change management tool. I structured the discovery readout not just as a research deliverable but as a persuasion document — designed to convert technical directors and agency staff who had not experienced design thinking into advocates for the approach. The structure moved from observable facts (what we found) to business stakes (what this costs) to opportunity (what we could build instead), with direct quotes from their own colleagues throughout.
What didn't happen: Company-wide layoffs ended the engagement before the design and build phases began. The discovery work was complete; the build work was not. The artifacts and readout remained with the agency as a foundation for those that continued the work.
“[Maile's readout] successfully brought structure and clarity to the mental fog of a complex federal modernization effort, humanizing technical deficiencies through a design-led approach.”
Professional Services Business Strategy Director
Pivotal Work
Converting "we already know what to build" into "we needed to see this"
Before my discovery work, the team's plan was effectively to just build what stakeholders asked for — the same reactive pattern that had failed before on previous attempts to modernize individual products in the past. Professional Services technical directors decided that we'd, maybe, “UX it later”.
My research made visible who the end users were, the major challenges and obstacles they encountered daily, and the important tasks that they had to accomplish, including supporting traumatized survivors in their most desperate time of need. The readout reframed the entire conversation around the people the system was supposed to serve, and gave the change-management team a concrete, evidence-based artifact connecting user needs directly to business risk and opportunity.
Speed vs. sustainability. The pressure to begin building was real and legitimate —government funding had been secured, and there was genuine urgency to show value. Inavigated this by framing the discovery phase not as a delay but as a risk reductioninvestment: the cost of user research was trivially small compared to the cost of buildingthe wrong thing at government scale and having to rebuild it, as previous attempts hadrequired.
The readout as a change management tool. I structured the discovery readout not just as a research deliverable but as a persuasion document — designed to convert technical directors and agency staff who had not experienced design thinking into advocates for the approach. The structure moved from observable facts (what we found) to business stakes (what this costs) to opportunity (what we could build instead), with direct quotes from their own colleagues throughout.
What didn't happen: Company-wide layoffs ended the engagement before the design and build phases began. The discovery work was complete; the build work was not. The artifacts and readout remained with the agency as a foundation for those that continued the work.
“[Maile's readout] successfully brought structure and clarity to the mental fog of a complex federal modernization effort, humanizing technical deficiencies through a design-led approach.”
Professional Services Business Strategy Director
Impact
Excellent Work
Executive stakeholders called the discovery readout "excellent" and "raising the bar" —and immediately requested I present it to multiple other internal agency teams to build organizational buy-in for the modernization effort
Converted several technical directors — who had been skeptical of the UX process — into advocates for it and gained their trust to lead the discovery by phase.
Produced the program's first documented usability baseline across three interconnected legacy systems.
Gave the change-management team concrete, evidence-based artifacts they needed for internal transformation advocacy — directly correlating user research findings to business value.
Impact
Excellent Work
Executive stakeholders called the discovery readout "excellent" and "raising the bar" —and immediately requested I present it to multiple other internal agency teams to build organizational buy-in for the modernization effort
Converted several technical directors — who had been skeptical of the UX process — into advocates for it and gained their trust to lead the discovery by phase.
Produced the program's first documented usability baseline across three interconnected legacy systems.
Gave the change-management team concrete, evidence-based artifacts they needed for internal transformation advocacy — directly correlating user research findings to business value.
Impact
Excellent Work
Executive stakeholders called the discovery readout "excellent" and "raising the bar" —and immediately requested I present it to multiple other internal agency teams to build organizational buy-in for the modernization effort
Converted several technical directors — who had been skeptical of the UX process — into advocates for it and gained their trust to lead the discovery by phase.
Produced the program's first documented usability baseline across three interconnected legacy systems.
Gave the change-management team concrete, evidence-based artifacts they needed for internal transformation advocacy — directly correlating user research findings to business value.
Process
Discovery
Rapid, Broad Discovery
In a matter of weeks, I planned and led 34 observational, user interviews — over 37 hours — spanning user groups the future system needed to serve: caller services and casework agents, field inspectors, as well as disaster survivors themselves. My in-depth, observational interviews with contextual inquiry conducted with agency staff and survivors were indispensible to understanding their work and the daily obstacles and challenges impeding their work.
A trip to DC with another Professional Services team members included a two day co-create workshop that I led. I had to customize the workshop specifically for such an early-stage, pre-discovery trip. Day three was spent sitting with agency staff to observe their experiences directly.
In parallel to the interviews, I ran heuristic evaluations of the staff's legacy/disconnected tools, the inspector's tablet application, and the public survivor-facing portal to establish a documented usability baseline no one had captured before.
Discovery
Rapid, Broad Discovery
In a matter of weeks, I planned and led 34 observational, user interviews — over 37 hours — spanning user groups the future system needed to serve: caller services and casework agents, field inspectors, as well as disaster survivors themselves. My in-depth, observational interviews with contextual inquiry conducted with agency staff and survivors were indispensible to understanding their work and the daily obstacles and challenges impeding their work.
A trip to DC with another Professional Services team members included a two day co-create workshop that I led. I had to customize the workshop specifically for such an early-stage, pre-discovery trip. Day three was spent sitting with agency staff to observe their experiences directly.
In parallel to the interviews, I ran heuristic evaluations of the staff's legacy/disconnected tools, the inspector's tablet application, and the public survivor-facing portal to establish a documented usability baseline no one had captured before.
Discovery
Rapid, Broad Discovery
In a matter of weeks, I planned and led 34 observational, user interviews — over 37 hours — spanning user groups the future system needed to serve: caller services and casework agents, field inspectors, as well as disaster survivors themselves. My in-depth, observational interviews with contextual inquiry conducted with agency staff and survivors were indispensible to understanding their work and the daily obstacles and challenges impeding their work.
A trip to DC with another Professional Services team members included a two day co-create workshop that I led. I had to customize the workshop specifically for such an early-stage, pre-discovery trip. Day three was spent sitting with agency staff to observe their experiences directly.
In parallel to the interviews, I ran heuristic evaluations of the staff's legacy/disconnected tools, the inspector's tablet application, and the public survivor-facing portal to establish a documented usability baseline no one had captured before.
34
Interviews
34
Interviews
1
Co-Create Workshops
1
Co-Create Workshops
1
On-Site Research
1
On-Site Research
3
Heuristic Evaluations
3
Heuristic Evaluations
3
Heuristic Evaluations
3
Archetypes
3
Archetypes
3
Archetypes
1
Journey Maps
1
Journey Maps
1
Journey Maps
3
Experience Maps
3
Experience Maps
3
Experience Maps
Definition
Synthesis into Foundational Artifacts
I synthesized the research into a complete suite of foundational artifacts, each designed to make a different dimension of the user experience visible and actionable:
Archetypes for all user types: Caller Services Staff (primary Service Cloud users), Inspectors (primary Field Service users), Disaster Survivors (primary Experience Cloud users)— each with goals, daily tasks, tools, pain points, and needs documented in detail.
A Survivor & Agent Simple Journey Map showing the five stages of disaster assistance from both the survivor's and the agent's perspective, including what each party was doing at each stage and where the system was getting in the way.
Experience Maps for Agency Staff — highly detailed, task-level views showing daily workflows, the tools used at each step, pain points, goals, and design opportunities mapped directly back to observed behavior.
Heuristic Evaluations of three legacy systems, rated by severity and mapped to UX recommendations for the Salesforce build.
Measures of Success correlated to UX improvements — five specific outcome metrics (from decreased survivor application touches to decreased reliance on augmentation staff) that I connected directly to the UX improvements I was proposing.
The core design challenge, as I framed it:
Create an intuitive, unified, user-centric ecosystem that empowers agents with easy-to-use, streamlined tools to simplify their work, and provides survivors with a simple, easy-to-understand self-service portal.
What the research surfaced that documentation couldn't
The human cost of this system was untenable. Agents who couldn't see the survivor portal, providing guidance on a tool they'd never seen. An inspector calling the same fraudulent number repeatedly because the three-call protocol offered no escape. A caseworker spending two hours opening 120 documents — the same 10 submitted over and over — for a single appeal. Survivors who had evacuated to another city with no way to schedule a home inspection online. These weren't system quirks — they were systematic failures with real consequences for desperate people.
A documentation nightmare
One of the most glaring insights revealed that the survivor portal's document upload process on was unintuitive, confusing, overly complex and convoluted. In fact, everything in the survivor portal was described that way by survivors, who were already traumatized by the disaster they'd just experienced.
If a similar action in a modern interface takes 3 clicks, the survivor portal required ten. The lack of consideration for the survivor's experience in the portal design correlated directly with caseworkers being overburdened by dozens of manual processes in an unreliable, disconnected system. Their job was to help survivors with their applications and to process and review documentation. But the tools were working against them. It was no wonder that a caseworker was expected to take 18 months to two years to be fully trained in using this maze of engineered, disconnected legacy tools that they called, 'a nightmare.'
Definition
Synthesis into Foundational Artifacts
I synthesized the research into a complete suite of foundational artifacts, each designed to make a different dimension of the user experience visible and actionable:
Archetypes for all user types: Caller Services Staff (primary Service Cloud users), Inspectors (primary Field Service users), Disaster Survivors (primary Experience Cloud users)— each with goals, daily tasks, tools, pain points, and needs documented in detail.
A Survivor & Agent Simple Journey Map showing the five stages of disaster assistance from both the survivor's and the agent's perspective, including what each party was doing at each stage and where the system was getting in the way.
Experience Maps for Agency Staff — highly detailed, task-level views showing daily workflows, the tools used at each step, pain points, goals, and design opportunities mapped directly back to observed behavior.
Heuristic Evaluations of three legacy systems, rated by severity and mapped to UX recommendations for the Salesforce build.
Measures of Success correlated to UX improvements — five specific outcome metrics (from decreased survivor application touches to decreased reliance on augmentation staff) that I connected directly to the UX improvements I was proposing.
The core design challenge, as I framed it:
Create an intuitive, unified, user-centric ecosystem that empowers agents with easy-to-use, streamlined tools to simplify their work, and provides survivors with a simple, easy-to-understand self-service portal.
What the research surfaced that documentation couldn't
The human cost of this system was untenable. Agents who couldn't see the survivor portal, providing guidance on a tool they'd never seen. An inspector calling the same fraudulent number repeatedly because the three-call protocol offered no escape. A caseworker spending two hours opening 120 documents — the same 10 submitted over and over — for a single appeal. Survivors who had evacuated to another city with no way to schedule a home inspection online. These weren't system quirks — they were systematic failures with real consequences for desperate people.
A documentation nightmare
One of the most glaring insights revealed that the survivor portal's document upload process on was unintuitive, confusing, overly complex and convoluted. In fact, everything in the survivor portal was described that way by survivors, who were already traumatized by the disaster they'd just experienced.
If a similar action in a modern interface takes 3 clicks, the survivor portal required ten. The lack of consideration for the survivor's experience in the portal design correlated directly with caseworkers being overburdened by dozens of manual processes in an unreliable, disconnected system. Their job was to help survivors with their applications and to process and review documentation. But the tools were working against them. It was no wonder that a caseworker was expected to take 18 months to two years to be fully trained in using this maze of engineered, disconnected legacy tools that they called, 'a nightmare.'
Definition
Synthesis into Foundational Artifacts
I synthesized the research into a complete suite of foundational artifacts, each designed to make a different dimension of the user experience visible and actionable:
Archetypes for all user types: Caller Services Staff (primary Service Cloud users), Inspectors (primary Field Service users), Disaster Survivors (primary Experience Cloud users)— each with goals, daily tasks, tools, pain points, and needs documented in detail.
A Survivor & Agent Simple Journey Map showing the five stages of disaster assistance from both the survivor's and the agent's perspective, including what each party was doing at each stage and where the system was getting in the way.
Experience Maps for Agency Staff — highly detailed, task-level views showing daily workflows, the tools used at each step, pain points, goals, and design opportunities mapped directly back to observed behavior.
Heuristic Evaluations of three legacy systems, rated by severity and mapped to UX recommendations for the Salesforce build.
Measures of Success correlated to UX improvements — five specific outcome metrics (from decreased survivor application touches to decreased reliance on augmentation staff) that I connected directly to the UX improvements I was proposing.
The core design challenge, as I framed it:
Create an intuitive, unified, user-centric ecosystem that empowers agents with easy-to-use, streamlined tools to simplify their work, and provides survivors with a simple, easy-to-understand self-service portal.
What the research surfaced that documentation couldn't
The human cost of this system was untenable. Agents who couldn't see the survivor portal, providing guidance on a tool they'd never seen. An inspector calling the same fraudulent number repeatedly because the three-call protocol offered no escape. A caseworker spending two hours opening 120 documents — the same 10 submitted over and over — for a single appeal. Survivors who had evacuated to another city with no way to schedule a home inspection online. These weren't system quirks — they were systematic failures with real consequences for desperate people.
A documentation nightmare
One of the most glaring insights revealed that the survivor portal's document upload process on was unintuitive, confusing, overly complex and convoluted. In fact, everything in the survivor portal was described that way by survivors, who were already traumatized by the disaster they'd just experienced.
If a similar action in a modern interface takes 3 clicks, the survivor portal required ten. The lack of consideration for the survivor's experience in the portal design correlated directly with caseworkers being overburdened by dozens of manual processes in an unreliable, disconnected system. Their job was to help survivors with their applications and to process and review documentation. But the tools were working against them. It was no wonder that a caseworker was expected to take 18 months to two years to be fully trained in using this maze of engineered, disconnected legacy tools that they called, 'a nightmare.'
Readout
Reframing the Vision
I used the synthesized findings to define a UX vision the teams could rally around: an intuitive, unified, user-centric ecosystem — a streamlined, connected toolset for staff, and a simple, mobile-first self-service portal for survivors — tied directly to measures of success the agency's own team had named in working sessions (fewer survivor issues, faster time to application completion and assistance payout, fewer manual touches for staff).
The Discovery Readout
I designed and delivered a discovery readout translating 37+ hours of raw research and a legacy-system heuristic audit into a clear, evidence-based case for a human-centered rebuild — concrete and compelling enough to gain buy-in and support from technical teams, for change management to use as a foundational resource, and for agency directors to champion.
What I was careful to document: not just what was wrong, but what the measurable outcomes of improvement would be — connecting UX recommendations directly to the agency's own stated measures of success.
Readout
Reframing the Vision
I used the synthesized findings to define a UX vision the teams could rally around: an intuitive, unified, user-centric ecosystem — a streamlined, connected toolset for staff, and a simple, mobile-first self-service portal for survivors — tied directly to measures of success the agency's own team had named in working sessions (fewer survivor issues, faster time to application completion and assistance payout, fewer manual touches for staff).
The Discovery Readout
I designed and delivered a discovery readout translating 37+ hours of raw research and a legacy-system heuristic audit into a clear, evidence-based case for a human-centered rebuild — concrete and compelling enough to gain buy-in and support from technical teams, for change management to use as a foundational resource, and for agency directors to champion.
What I was careful to document: not just what was wrong, but what the measurable outcomes of improvement would be — connecting UX recommendations directly to the agency's own stated measures of success.
Readout
Reframing the Vision
I used the synthesized findings to define a UX vision the teams could rally around: an intuitive, unified, user-centric ecosystem — a streamlined, connected toolset for staff, and a simple, mobile-first self-service portal for survivors — tied directly to measures of success the agency's own team had named in working sessions (fewer survivor issues, faster time to application completion and assistance payout, fewer manual touches for staff).
The Discovery Readout
I designed and delivered a discovery readout translating 37+ hours of raw research and a legacy-system heuristic audit into a clear, evidence-based case for a human-centered rebuild — concrete and compelling enough to gain buy-in and support from technical teams, for change management to use as a foundational resource, and for agency directors to champion.
What I was careful to document: not just what was wrong, but what the measurable outcomes of improvement would be — connecting UX recommendations directly to the agency's own stated measures of success.
Concepts
Three experience visions. One ecosystem recommendation.
From the synthesis, I developed three parallel experience visions — each addressing a different user population — and then showed how they connected into a single, unified ecosystem:
Caller Services & Caseworker Experience (Service Cloud): A connected, streamlined experience replacing five disconnected tools with one. Key concepts explored: a centralized agent dashboard with the day's schedule, assigned cases, and disaster-specific updates; integrated SOP search with AI-assisted plain-language responses; automated case status tracking; standardized comment templates; and direct visibility into the survivor portal.
Inspector Experience (Field Service): Some of the concepts recommended included simplified scheduling, automated route mapping based on assignment location (replacing manual address copying into mapping apps), documentation access and summaries visible in the offline interface, removal of photo constraints, ability to capture missing survivor documentation, and auto-generated reports.
Survivor Experience (Experience Cloud): A human-centered redesign of the survivor portal around clear application statuses and next steps, AI-assisted plain-language agent that could answer simple application process and eligibility questions, self-service inspection scheduling, intuitive and easy to use document upload process, and proactive notifications — reducing helpline call volume as a direct result.
The recommendation was a unified ecosystem designed holistically with the end-users at the center.
Concepts
Three experience visions. One ecosystem recommendation.
From the synthesis, I developed three parallel experience visions — each addressing a different user population — and then showed how they connected into a single, unified ecosystem:
Caller Services & Caseworker Experience (Service Cloud): A connected, streamlined experience replacing five disconnected tools with one. Key concepts explored: a centralized agent dashboard with the day's schedule, assigned cases, and disaster-specific updates; integrated SOP search with AI-assisted plain-language responses; automated case status tracking; standardized comment templates; and direct visibility into the survivor portal.
Inspector Experience (Field Service): Some of the concepts recommended included simplified scheduling, automated route mapping based on assignment location (replacing manual address copying into mapping apps), documentation access and summaries visible in the offline interface, removal of photo constraints, ability to capture missing survivor documentation, and auto-generated reports.
Survivor Experience (Experience Cloud): A human-centered redesign of the survivor portal around clear application statuses and next steps, AI-assisted plain-language agent that could answer simple application process and eligibility questions, self-service inspection scheduling, intuitive and easy to use document upload process, and proactive notifications — reducing helpline call volume as a direct result.
The recommendation was a unified ecosystem designed holistically with the end-users at the center.
Concepts
Three experience visions. One ecosystem recommendation.
From the synthesis, I developed three parallel experience visions — each addressing a different user population — and then showed how they connected into a single, unified ecosystem:
Caller Services & Caseworker Experience (Service Cloud): A connected, streamlined experience replacing five disconnected tools with one. Key concepts explored: a centralized agent dashboard with the day's schedule, assigned cases, and disaster-specific updates; integrated SOP search with AI-assisted plain-language responses; automated case status tracking; standardized comment templates; and direct visibility into the survivor portal.
Inspector Experience (Field Service): Some of the concepts recommended included simplified scheduling, automated route mapping based on assignment location (replacing manual address copying into mapping apps), documentation access and summaries visible in the offline interface, removal of photo constraints, ability to capture missing survivor documentation, and auto-generated reports.
Survivor Experience (Experience Cloud): A human-centered redesign of the survivor portal around clear application statuses and next steps, AI-assisted plain-language agent that could answer simple application process and eligibility questions, self-service inspection scheduling, intuitive and easy to use document upload process, and proactive notifications — reducing helpline call volume as a direct result.
The recommendation was a unified ecosystem designed holistically with the end-users at the center.
Designs
Service Cloud concepts grounded in research insights
Given the accelerated timeline, my design work in this engagement focused on concept-level wireframes and UX recommendations rather than high-fidelity prototypes — the discovery readout itself was the final deliverable. It was designed to provide enough specificity that technical architects could act on it immediately.
A few of the key design decisions driven directly by my research findings:
Agent dashboard with integrated knowledge. Research showed agents spent significant pre-shift time launching multiple applications and hunting for disaster-specific updates. The dashboard concept consolidated that into one view — no additional application launches required.
Embedded AI-assisted policy and SOP search. Agents frequently needed to reference policies while on a live call with a survivor. This solution embedded search directly in the primary agent interface, with an LLM agent that could respond in plain language with the most current information—eliminating the context-switching to SharePoint and downloading documents that currently interrupted calls.
Automated route assignment for inspectors. One of the highest-impact, lowest-complexity improvements identified. Inspectors spent significant time manually plotting routes — and assignments weren't made by geographic proximity, meaning an inspector could drive an hour between adjacent cases. Automated location-based assignment and integrated route mapping would directly increase the number of inspections completed per day.
Designs
Service Cloud concepts grounded in research insights
Given the accelerated timeline, my design work in this engagement focused on concept-level wireframes and UX recommendations rather than high-fidelity prototypes — the discovery readout itself was the final deliverable. It was designed to provide enough specificity that technical architects could act on it immediately.
A few of the key design decisions driven directly by my research findings:
Agent dashboard with integrated knowledge. Research showed agents spent significant pre-shift time launching multiple applications and hunting for disaster-specific updates. The dashboard concept consolidated that into one view — no additional application launches required.
Embedded AI-assisted policy and SOP search. Agents frequently needed to reference policies while on a live call with a survivor. This solution embedded search directly in the primary agent interface, with an LLM agent that could respond in plain language with the most current information—eliminating the context-switching to SharePoint and downloading documents that currently interrupted calls.
Automated route assignment for inspectors. One of the highest-impact, lowest-complexity improvements identified. Inspectors spent significant time manually plotting routes — and assignments weren't made by geographic proximity, meaning an inspector could drive an hour between adjacent cases. Automated location-based assignment and integrated route mapping would directly increase the number of inspections completed per day.
Designs
Service Cloud concepts grounded in research insights
Given the accelerated timeline, my design work in this engagement focused on concept-level wireframes and UX recommendations rather than high-fidelity prototypes — the discovery readout itself was the final deliverable. It was designed to provide enough specificity that technical architects could act on it immediately.
A few of the key design decisions driven directly by my research findings:
Agent dashboard with integrated knowledge. Research showed agents spent significant pre-shift time launching multiple applications and hunting for disaster-specific updates. The dashboard concept consolidated that into one view — no additional application launches required.
Embedded AI-assisted policy and SOP search. Agents frequently needed to reference policies while on a live call with a survivor. This solution embedded search directly in the primary agent interface, with an LLM agent that could respond in plain language with the most current information—eliminating the context-switching to SharePoint and downloading documents that currently interrupted calls.
Automated route assignment for inspectors. One of the highest-impact, lowest-complexity improvements identified. Inspectors spent significant time manually plotting routes — and assignments weren't made by geographic proximity, meaning an inspector could drive an hour between adjacent cases. Automated location-based assignment and integrated route mapping would directly increase the number of inspections completed per day.
Outcome
What I'd carry forward — and do differently
What this engagement confirmed
Discovery that centers real user voices — rather than stakeholder assumptions — is not just a methodological preference. It is the difference between building what the system does today in a new platform, and building something genuinely better. The agency had tried to fix this system before. It hadn't worked. The reason it hadn't worked was that no one had done this research first.
The readout format — designed to move from empathy to evidence to opportunity — is a powerful change management tool, not just a UX deliverable. The change management team's response confirmed that research findings, presented compellingly, can shift institutional momentum. I'll carry that framing intentionally into future discovery engagements.
What I'd like to have done
This engagement was abruptly cut short for myself and others on Professional Services, when company-wide layoffs impacted us. I'm happy that I'd been able to present my UX vision and the high-level concepts within a unified ecosystem, but there was so much more that I wanted to do. I'm motivated by helping people—by doing the most good for the most people. I know I could help improve the lives of the end-user on both sides of the program, so I was disappointed to not be able to see that through.
However, even in that compressed window, my work reframed how the technical and delivery teams understood the problem: from “build what we're told” to “build what survivors and staff actually need,” and it demonstrated how quickly focused, high-volume qualitative research can surface the real risk in a modernization program before money is spent building the wrong thing. I just hope that the program followed the vision that I'd presented.
Outcome
What I'd carry forward — and do differently
What this engagement confirmed
Discovery that centers real user voices — rather than stakeholder assumptions — is not just a methodological preference. It is the difference between building what the system does today in a new platform, and building something genuinely better. The agency had tried to fix this system before. It hadn't worked. The reason it hadn't worked was that no one had done this research first.
The readout format — designed to move from empathy to evidence to opportunity — is a powerful change management tool, not just a UX deliverable. The change management team's response confirmed that research findings, presented compellingly, can shift institutional momentum. I'll carry that framing intentionally into future discovery engagements.
What I'd like to have done
This engagement was abruptly cut short for myself and others on Professional Services, when company-wide layoffs impacted us. I'm happy that I'd been able to present my UX vision and the high-level concepts within a unified ecosystem, but there was so much more that I wanted to do. I'm motivated by helping people—by doing the most good for the most people. I know I could help improve the lives of the end-user on both sides of the program, so I was disappointed to not be able to see that through.
However, even in that compressed window, my work reframed how the technical and delivery teams understood the problem: from “build what we're told” to “build what survivors and staff actually need,” and it demonstrated how quickly focused, high-volume qualitative research can surface the real risk in a modernization program before money is spent building the wrong thing. I just hope that the program followed the vision that I'd presented.
Outcome
What I'd carry forward — and do differently
What this engagement confirmed
Discovery that centers real user voices — rather than stakeholder assumptions — is not just a methodological preference. It is the difference between building what the system does today in a new platform, and building something genuinely better. The agency had tried to fix this system before. It hadn't worked. The reason it hadn't worked was that no one had done this research first.
The readout format — designed to move from empathy to evidence to opportunity — is a powerful change management tool, not just a UX deliverable. The change management team's response confirmed that research findings, presented compellingly, can shift institutional momentum. I'll carry that framing intentionally into future discovery engagements.
What I'd like to have done
This engagement was abruptly cut short for myself and others on Professional Services, when company-wide layoffs impacted us. I'm happy that I'd been able to present my UX vision and the high-level concepts within a unified ecosystem, but there was so much more that I wanted to do. I'm motivated by helping people—by doing the most good for the most people. I know I could help improve the lives of the end-user on both sides of the program, so I was disappointed to not be able to see that through.
However, even in that compressed window, my work reframed how the technical and delivery teams understood the problem: from “build what we're told” to “build what survivors and staff actually need,” and it demonstrated how quickly focused, high-volume qualitative research can surface the real risk in a modernization program before money is spent building the wrong thing. I just hope that the program followed the vision that I'd presented.
