For the last three decades, VA employees have been using the same software, database, and processes to r eview and approve GI benefits to veterans and their beneficiaries. While these tools might have been state-of-the-art during the era of Walkmans and Kobe Bryant (RIP), they are painfully antiquated for the needs of today.
Fjord was brought in to use human-center and service design to consolidate services, identify opportunities for automation, and make the process of going back to school as easy as possible for our veterans and their families.
Note: The DGIB project is a massive 10 year project with many overlapping pieces. For this portfolio piece, I'll be focusing on the Benefit Manager; a robust application that the VA personnel use to review and authorize requests to release educational funds.
The Problem:Old software, fractionalized databases, and outdated UI has caused headaches foreducational instutions, VA employees, and — most importantly — Veterans who want to use their GI bill benefits.
The Opportunity:With a $500 million contract and a young, talented team of designers, analysts, and developers, the VA has the funds, the skill, and the experience to completely reimagine the GI process.
The Solution:Build a custom application that ssimplifies the process, automates steps, and streamlines how Veterans Claim Examiners evaluate and approve, and release educational benefits.
Over two weeks we talked with over 50 VA employees, veterans, and educational stagg, each with their own specific needs and responsibilities within the GI Bill process.
What we got was hundreds of windows into the setbacks of the current GI Bill process; a wealth of notes and verbatims for us to analyze and pull design principles and themes from.
In order to visualize a VA employees journey in the GI Bill process, we create a low-fidelity flow that map out the different, steps, systems, and responsibilities of a Veteran Claims Examiner.
Once we had a better understanding of the GI Bill approval process, we identify friction areas as well as areas where we can automate the process.
We then mapped out the final flow and referenced it multiple times when building low fidelity mockups the new GI bill application process.
Once we had the fundamental flow mapped out, we started designing high fidelity wires using the USWDS and VA design system.
After working with our client to mockup the individual steps and actions a Claims Examiner will take within the new application, we handed the wires off to the developer team.
We then provided quality assurance and developer support as the programmers turned our designs into a working prototype.
As major components of the Benefit Manager were designed, we would schedule, organize, and facilitate user testing sessions. In these sessions we asked user to find certain information and perform common task using the new application.
We then plotted our findings in an impact vs effort matrix and worked with our client to determine what we should fix now, what we should fix later, and what can be solved through training.
