I was responsible for creating a full-scale redesign of a grant management tool used by public health departments. It involved project management, UX/UI strategy, evolving the brand, reworking and expanding user flows and information architecture, and building out the design system.
ABOUT THE PROJEcT
Simple and modern grant management
A client of Primary.Health reached out with an ambitious project: make grant management used by public health agencies easier and more modern.
It started in August 2023. We received their JIRA board, a Figma prototype and some development work initiated by another company. Knowing we would have access to all of this, we believed it would be reasonable to have the final version launched by January 2024 as planned.
KICKOFF
Becoming a subject matter expert
I dedicated a huge portion of my time diving into the documentation shared by our client and the whole wide world of grants. I needed to have a solid understanding of grant management to lead my team to a successful launch, and let me tell you: it's complicated.
Picking up the pieces
As I reviewed the JIRA tickets and explored the prototype, I quickly realized our goal of a January launch would be much more challenging than expected.
In the JIRA tickets and Figma prototypes, there were many vague / empty user stories, and I needed more context to start designing the end-to-end experience. I launched a rapid discovery effort to fill in all the missing pieces across the different user journeys.
Defining core flows
The tool needed to be split into three interconnected parts.
Planning guide Each public health department reports on their ability to meet the grant's requirements, and any known gaps they may have. Work plan Each public health department reports on the different activities they'll complete in order to meet the grant's requirements. Spend plan Each public health department reports on their budget to fund the activities outlined in their Work plan, including staffing.
Defining the users
The tool needed to reflect the two sided nature of grant management. A grantor (state admin) and grantee (public health department). They each interacted with the flows outlined above.
State admin
A state admin user creates a template for the Planning guide, Work plan, and Spend plan, and sends the documents to each public health department.
Public health department
Each public health department completes their documents and returns them to the state admin to review.
Getting the team up to speed
I mapped out the complete platform in figjam (shown below) to quickly align our team on what needed to be built and how it all fit together. This was referenced often to clarify interactions and edge cases across the different user flows.
Refining the timeline and process
I met with the client to align on expectations for the project. Each month we would ship a different "part". We started with the Planning guide, followed by the Work plan and Spend plan.
While it felt daunting at the start, some decisions that I made early on enabled us to move fast and ship on-time. I created a source-of-truth google doc that included all ongoing meeting notes, links to files and resources; offered clear and thorough documentation in the figma file to encourage async collaboration; and managed a github kanban board to monitor progress, and checked in with the team as needed. I was really proud of our team work throughout the project.
discovery
Insights & Opportunities
After several weeks, I finally got access to the existing design system and design file behind the prototype. I jumped into the current design file to complete a heuristic evaluation and reviewed for opportunities to apply common design principles for an improved user experience.
From there I quickly scheduled 1:1 stakeholder interviews to understand the different pain points and experiences in their current workflow.
Error prone and time consuming
In the current workflow, I learned there is a heavy reliance on manual data entry into google spreadsheets. This has led to an abundance of data errors due to the nature that information is entered manually, and contributes to user's increased anxiety. "Was the data entered correctly?" "Is it missing anything?"
Making matters worse, it can take months+ to complete documents and have them approved during the review cycle. The review cycle occurs via email, and often results in a laborious effort to manage the individual comments across their submissions.
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Web Developer, Quotient
Misaligned mental models
In the current designs, the left side menu is cluttered with unnecessary tabs and does not align with the users daily actions. Navigating within the page itself I noticed poorly grouped and somewhat contradictory actions.
Overwhelming content in existing designs
In the current designs, the information hierarchy and styling of content is overwhelming, especially in instances where there are long paragraphs of text. Referring to the principle of cognitive load, changing how the content is presented can make it faster and easier for users to read.
THE UPDATED DESIGN
A more refined experience
Simplified, focused navigation
Sometimes less is more. Only showing common pages on the menu allows the user to hone in on their day-to-day tasks.
More intuitive page navigation
Created a single location for navigating inside a document. No more guessing which button to clear, or where to look to progress in the flow.
Better use of bold font
Less eye strain, more readability. Let's use bold more intentionally.
Built to scale
After testing designs with users, I found the icons within the document's submenu created more confusion than value. Considering that different grants may have 15+ Capabilities, I removed the icon from each tab.
Introducing review cycles
Goodbye gmail, hello internal reviews. Review cycles are now built in to the platform to allow for quick, easy changes and resubmissions.
vision
Revitalizing the brand
When we first started the project, we were building upon the existing designs. I identified and addressed low hanging opportunities to improve to the user experience.
But, what if we took it further? Taking inspiration from direct and indirect competitors, as well as the client's colors and general style, I reimagined the core flows to be even more engaging, modern and intuitive.
Grant overviews
Get precious time back with the ability to get a birds eye view of all grant documents in a single page. View different statuses and quickly continue where you left off.
A platform that stands apart
I explored the possibility of a more robust redesign: one that can easily scale, is aesthetically pleasing, and is light years away from typical government grant tools.
When presenting to leadership, I shared insights from user interviews, cited best practices, and spoke to the potential ROI with these changes. While they were excited and eager to have these go live, they did not want to lose momentum. These would be scoped in post-launch.
impact
Expected results
Faster review cycles
Streamlined for public health departments and state reviewers. Smooth back and forth to resolve issues quickly.
More intuitive navigation
Moving between documents and jumping between sections is more intuitive and efficient. No more guesswork in where to go.
Quickly view overall grant statuses
From the homepage, immediately navigate to a grant overview page to get a sense of all the moving parts, and take action where needed.
Efficient, built-in QA
Error states and warnings indicate when fields are missing or need review.
Less support tickets
Simplified interactions and clearer information architecture increased core task completion rates
