What if government flipped its approach to social services?
BACKGROUND
In a dual-semester engagement, the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) approached our student design team at the IIT Institute of Design (ID) to help them better understand the challenges, perspectives, and meaningful moments of customers and providers within the Home Services Program (HSP), [phase one] and to then develop and prototype solutions with these discoveries in mind [phase two].
The work below shows snapshots of the process through which we could understand and build human-centered opportunities for this state-wide program.
SELECTED INSIGHTS
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Trained and trusted HSP providers remain untapped assets.
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There’s no seamless way to transfer knowledge between two providers, making the service transition especially hard on the customer.
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HSP's administrative neutrality more often increases distressing experiences within the system.
PHASE ONE: RESEARCH & PLANNING
CLIENT
The Illinois Department of Human Services
TEAM
V. Kumar's Design Planning class [phase one]
T. MacTavish's Interaction Design class [phase two]
COLLABORATORS
HSP customers and providers
Access Living Chicago
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Big picture learning
One of design's biggest roles is "knowledge broker." Improving relationships to connect existing resources and build capacity is key for sustainable program changes.
 Contextual ResearchWe conducted interviews with HSP customers, their providers and DHS staff, observed HSP trainings and met with representatives of SEIU, gathering perspectives and mapping diverse journeys. |  Analysis + SynthesisWe structured our debriefs, collecting patterns, identifying pain points and meaningful moments. We clustered insights into ten themes of opportunities that we would get feedback on. |  Co-CreationWe engaged stakeholders with insight posters, diverse journeys and scenario building, continuing to build empathy and alignment as we moved forward with concept development. |
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INITIAL CONCEPT DETAILS
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PHASE TWO: PROTOTYPING
"I've been involved in advocacy and policy-changing for years. This was the first time I've ever been in a room where people were able to get to this level of thoughtful dialogue."
—workshop participant
 Feedback + Move ForwardWe asked each stakeholder group to map desirability and feasibility of each concept and ultimately moved forward with two concepts: Storytelling Platform, and Self-Advancement Support |  Concept DevelopmentThe Self-Advancement Support team wanted to provoke questions around functions like peer-to-peer mentorship, skill and experience tracking, consolidated customer briefs, customer feedback and reviews. |  Prototyping FeaturesA multi-stakeholder workshop enabled participants to witness the progress made towards a vision they’d been helping create. We deepened user personas in fleshed out scenarios and encouraged participants to discuss real-world implications. |
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HSP•PRO: A PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT NETWORK
Our solution offers a supplemental service for HSP providers to gain relevant knowledge, and receive advanced career support from HSP experts, including customers and fellow providers.
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FINAL PRESENTATION AS LIVE PROTOTYPE
In the final share-out with our stakeholder partners, our design team accomplished two main tasks: sharing finalized concepts aimed to build and strengthen the HSP community, and successfully prototyping the foundational technology to enable such a concept.
The technology enabled homebound HSP customers and providers to connect "face-to-face" with program decision-makers, for the first time since entering the program.
