More Equitable COVID-19 Contact Tracing Services
Client: California Department of Public Health
My Role: Service Designer, UX Designer and Researcher
Overview
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) realized that COVID-19 surveillance and investigation services were not adequately reaching underserved communities, including people experiencing house insecurity, immigrants without status, and farm laborers.
Challenge
Develop a mobile tool for Local Health Jurisdictions (LHJ) and partner organizations to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of in-the-field COVID-19 contact tracing. The solution should adopt the program's desktop business rules while addressing the unique challenges of engaging underserved groups.
Making Sense of the Work
At the beginning of the project, our understanding of the problem space, users and affected communities was minimal. So I set up starting points:
Where Do We Begin?
Experience: Understand LHJ experiences supporting stressed communities during the pandemic to inform functions and experience design principles.
Scenarios: Identify scenarios, including but not limited to contact tracing and case investigation, that might benefit from in-the-field services.
Customization: Understand the unique needs of users supporting different communities or geographies to inform customized experiences.
Our project faced significant constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including limited client support, shifting policies, lockdown challenges, legal and political restrictions, and limited access to residents and stakeholders.
Recognizing Project Constraints
How might we approach design inclusively when designing with isn’t viable?
Design Process
To understand the project territory, we began by hosting honest conversations about our own stories and personal experiences, creating a foundation of empathy and shared understanding. We adopted a service design mindset, enabling us to see the project as a system of interconnected experiences and touchpoints. By mapping relevant references, we identified key contextual elements, benchmarks, and inspirations to inform our approach. Immersing ourselves in the Salesforce Design System ensured alignment with established design principles and components, promoting consistency and scalability. Finally, we embraced design experimentation, using iterative prototyping to explore possibilities and refine ideas based on feedback and insights.
Understand The Territory
Discover, Co-Design, Reframe
Research Framework
To ground the team and the work, I developed a research plan using exploratory and agile approaches. Key data collection strategies included:
Primary research with experts
Leveraging the knowledge of out State client, LHJs staff, experts from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and partner organizations to help us shape our perspective on design concepts.
Secondary research
Diving into official statistics to understand the California state landscape. Going after stories, blogs, articles and social media comments to better understand context, opinions and fears of the underserved populations we were designing for.
Team diversity as an asset
Hosting honest conversations about our own stories and personal experiences, for example in rural agricultural contexts or the immigration system to help shape questions and topics for team research.
Guerilla research
Participating in contact tracing and outbreak investigation trainings offered by Johns Hopkins, where potential users of the tool could be and learn what they were learning. Visiting public testing sites for first-hand experiences and inspiration.
Storyboards
To communicate and document use-case scenarios, I iteratively developed and updated storyboards capturing contextual and emotional nuance uncovered through the agile research process, as well as the wireframes representing the service at each step.
In weekly meetings with our clients, I used the storyboards as prompts to generate dialogue and deepen our understanding of necessary functionalities, to draw from their lived experiences, and to inform design principles for the tool.
Three storyboards evolved portraying current and potential service scenarios.
Interviews
I crafted semi-structured interview guides and facilitated workshops with LHJ representatives to uncover the ways in which geographies, resources, and demographics shaped different needs for the in-the-field contact tracing experience.
The strategy for outreach hinged on various aspects of diversity and inclusion. Specifically, we targeted engagement with LHJs that work with different types of partners, like tribal nations, a wide range of community-based organizations (CBOs), educational institutions, and correctional facilities.
Through conversations with staff from 9 LHJs, we uncovered 6 insights, that were incorporated into the service concepts and hi-fidelity prototypes.
Impact
The research significantly influenced the design, ensuring that accessibility and simplicity were prioritized to create an intuitive user experience, even in challenging field conditions.
Content design was thoughtfully tailored to meet the needs of those working with underserved communities, resulting in expressions of hope and relief from Local Health Jurisdiction (LHJ) representatives.
The tool's success also sparked interest in extending its use to the surveillance and management of other communicable diseases, demonstrating its potential for broader public health applications.
Summary of My Contributions
Employed a service design mindset to create a deeper understanding of the tool.
Crafted and led implementation of research tracks.
Developed storyboards showcasing how the tool could support specific use case scenarios.
Built wireframes and a high-fidelity prototype.
Mentored junior colleagues in service design, UX research, self-reflexivity, and work-life balance.
Partnered with stakeholders to identify leverage points in the contact tracing and investigation systems.
Worked alongside a team of engineers to ensure feasibility and proper handoff.