The Brief

Whilst working in-house for an organisation, I spent time observing staff in their daily duties to establish where small scale innefficies were leading to larger problems and losses for the business. In this case there were significant issues centred around a single information form the business used to capture data as users first accessed the organisation. This form captured personal & demographic data as well as the user’s current situation, needs & wants, and historic experiences (as this helped tailor a better service to each individual).

Whilst it may seem trivial to analyse the flaws of a single form, this form alone was responsible for at least 10 hours of wasted staff time per week, and was the root cause for numerous other problems and complaints.

The Approach

The conceptualisation and design of this form failed to recognise or support its users. This had gone unnoticed because the individuals experiencing the issues felt they were merely trivial complaints or examples of individual ‘user error’.

In almost all cases data/information acquisition formats have multiple users at different levels, each of which have their own specific requirements. In this case the forms design failed to support the service user completing it (the data provider), and its format neglected to recognise the existence of the two following users: the data enterer, and the data user.

User 1 (the data provider) needed the form to be clear and easy to complete to avoid confusion (and repeated contact from User 2 to resolve their incomplete/unclear answers) and to help solidify a strong early impression of the organisation.
User 1 was failed by poor design hierachy and a lack of appropriate space for them to complete the hand-written sections. This meant that users repeatedly missed sections, and over-wrote others with their answers to previous questions.

User 2 (the data enterer) needed the form to have been completed fully by User 1, and for the information order to align with the information entry order in the organisations digital system.
User 2 was failed by a lack of alignment between the question order on the form and the question order in the digital entry system. This meant they had to waste time repeatedly moving/scrolling back and forth across the forms’ pages and sections in order to utilise their required information.

User 3 (the data user) needed to be able to quickly review the personal data, then move on to the needs, wants, and historic experience information in order to tailor the provision to User 1s specific personal needs.
User 3 was failed by a lack of ability to skip to the historic experience information. Much like User 2, this meant they wasted time moving/scrolling back and forth between pages to ascertain the necessary information.