Michigan Legal Help Program

September to December, 2016

-This is my story about providing solutions to better the workflow of MLHP.-

Michigan Legal Help Program (MLHP), a non-profit organization, provides fruitful resources for Michigan residents who are involved in civil cases on their official website. They encounter increasing pressures for uploading new content with their current workflow as the website grows quickly in content as well as the number of the visitors. Thus, MLHP asked us for help on their planned improvement.

My Roles

Skill Set: Research | Interview | Affinity Mapping | Brainstorming | Consultant Report Writing | Teamwork | Presentation

I worked on this project for the course called "Contextual Inquiry and Consulting Fundations" within a 4-person team. For outreach activities, I led communications with clients and worked as a liaison. Internally, I was also one of the researchers and interviewers.

Approaches

Overarching Question: How Can We Improve the Workflow for Uploading New Content to the Website?

Background Research

We approached the question from different angles. I did literature review on one of the aspects, the content management system (CMS). For the background research report I wrote on CMS: Open in PDF

Contextual Interviews

We conducted 5 contextual interviews with the whole content management team at MLHP. One teammate and I were responsible for 2 interviews. This process was helpful for us to understand the practice of their current workflow in the real context of their work.

Affinity Mapping

We made affinity diagrams by putting our affinity notes taken from the interviews on the post-it notes. And the process of labeling each cluster of notes with summaries and category titles helped us to see the whole picture and understand the core of MLHP's problem.

Discoveries

Core Problem: Uneven Work Distribution Caused the Bottleneck

Work Distribution Chart

Processes

  • Brainstorming

    We presented our discoveries in class, and invited the whole class (more than a hundred students) to brainstorm possible solutions with us. One of our classmates suggested using Kanban to visualize the workflow.

Brainstorming in class








Solutions and Impacts

In our final presentation to the client, we presented 4 scenario-based solutions to them. The main solution is the physical Kanban, which is easy to use, cheap, and effective. I was responsible for introducing this main solution and the clients gave me a very positive response.

"I was worried about that I would need to learn a new digital tool with your suggestion. But now that I understand that the problem can be solved with papers, I am so relieved."
--MLHP Staff
Real impact

I could see how the clients were highly appreciative of the idea. They immediately implemented this solution and was very satisfied.

My Works


Secure Mail: Agile User Testing (NDA)

February, 2018

Secure Mail was being redesigned and would launch the new user interface based on the findings and recommendations from the Competitive Analysis that I did during my summer internship. I conducted 6 user testing to help validate the new design concepts. Read More>>

Secure Mail: Benchmarking Research (NDA)

May - August, 2017

I worked as a Product Design Research Intern at Citrix Product Design team. I led the UX research study on Secure Mail app to guide the redesign efforts with design recommendations. I did a competitive analysis with gap analysis and 20 user experience testing to identify the use cases and understand the product positioning in the market. Read More>>

To comply with my Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), I have omitted or reinterpreted the confidential information, but it wouldn't affect me to share my thoughts, personal experience, and what I had learned with you.



Expedia Mobile App: Discovering Millennials Trip Planning Behavior

January - April, 2017

My teammates and I conducted interviews, comparative analysis, surveys, heuristic evaluation, online surveys, and usability testing to investigate how millennial travelers planned their trips with online tools. Based on our findings, Expedia would expand their service and create a new feature that would assist people to explore new destinations for travel. Read More>>










2nd Brain: Needs Finding and Validation

January - April, 2017

My team members and I conducted surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews to study what problems teenagers with chronic illnesses were facing and what they needed to improve their medication adherence. The project was particularly interesting due to the traits of our audiences and the dynamic relationship between stakeholders and audiences. Therefore, the process of needs validation was unique and challenging. Read More>>







Michigan Legal Help: Identified Workflow Issues

September - December, 2016

Using contextual inquiries, my teammates and I investigated how people work at Michigan Legal Help, a non-profit organization, in order to help them upgrade their workflow. Read More>>