Selected writing samples
OpenShift: making Agile development a reality for government projects
“Burdened by a high rejection rate for uncontested divorce filings, the Ministry of the Attorney General set out to simplify the process for citizens. Their primary objective was to improve access to justice for British Columbians filing for uncontested divorces without a lawyer. In this case, access to justice meant making the filing experience more empathetic, more affordable, and less error-prone. Using OpenShift, service design, and Agile development, our teams created the Online Divorce Assistant Application.”
Design for Policy: bringing a design thinking approach to TransLink’s Fare Review process
“In a traditional policy making environment, there’s rarely opportunity to observe the design implications of your ideas—that’s considered a problem for the signage and wayfinding team or the digital team to figure out. This means that the shortcomings of a product or service only become known when customers use it, a costly and late-stage learning to make. Working with prototypes gave TransLink the opportunity to learn, iterate, and improve. This led to a better customer experience that’s cheaper and more efficient than making changes to a system that’s already been implemented.”
Fringe Review Baker’s Dozen: 12 Angry Puppets
The Baker has been found dead in a bathtub, the Candlemaker has disappeared but was definitely at the scene of the crime, and the Butcher is on trial for murder. Twelve puppets are summoned for jury duty to determine whether the Butcher killed his husband, the Baker. With their snap judgements, biases, and even indifference, those puppets had me hoping never to find myself at the mercy of a jury.
iQuartic: Designing an improved workflow management system
We worked closely with the Director of Medical Coding to understand the ins and outs of iQuartic’s risk adjustment processes. Our Discovery work and partnership approach helped us to understand their existing processes, pain points, and objectives. By leveraging their knowledge and expertise, we were able to get up to speed on the product quickly, while improving the client’s understanding of the solution we implemented. Together we covered everything from technical debt to customer feedback.
How to Improve Your Digital Product With a Heuristic Review
We often say that a great product is never truly done. There is always something to improve or change based on user needs and requests, research findings, usability, or industry standards. It’s not enough for a product to be live and good looking. Effective product owners care about performance and whether their product is actually contributing to the business goals. Given the agile nature in which most mature digital teams work, there is almost always a list of feature improvements, bugs, accessibility tickets, and user requests waiting in the wings to be written up, prioritized, assigned, and implemented.