Secondary Research

Through secondary research with articles provided by our client, we were able to better understand their vision for the future and be on better ground to communicate with them.Gov AI's material covered topics like AI in government, expressing the difficulty facing government workers in completing oppressive amounts of paperwork. In addition, we learned that caseworkers often spend only between 9 and 20% of their time working directly with clients and the rest doing administrative tasks. AI is being considered now to take on tasks that have traditionally been believed to require human decision-making.

Stakeholders help us understand the current state of benefits processes

We were able to get time with three nonprofits in Pittsburgh and one in Philadelphia:

412 Food Rescue
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
Consumer Health Coalition
Coalition Against Hunger

These groups were thrilled to work with us on a project addressing a problem central to their organizations' missions. So excited, in fact, that we were offered the opportunity to lead a focus group with people who have experience with benefits applications due to disabilities. We went in expecting to learn about experiences with benefits processes, but came out with a much deeper appreciation for people who have a very different perspective on the world.

We moved forward with other stakeholder groups in parallel, interviewing employees of government agencies including the US Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Allegheny County Department of Human Services.

In the spring, we faced a new challenge in recruiting benefits applicants in that society at large was responding to COVID-19 by socially isolating. We were quick to see the opportunity, however, as everyone was now spending all their time at home and more people than ever were applying for benefits programs online. We turned our recruitment efforts to online communities to round out our research efforts.

This proved successful and helped us to see from the applicants' perspective what is missing, as well as how other organizations either do or do not see eye-to-eye with applicants. This has allowed us to bridge gaps between stakeholder groups for a more complete picture of the current state of benefits application processes.

"We should be celebrating the resilience of people in poverty, not judging them."

Director of Consumer Health Coalition

Insights from Stakeholders

People found benefits applications to be demoralizing and difficult
How do recipients feel about the process and government agencies? How could they be better supported?

Lack of integration across different programs due to limited manpower
What type of support is missing for non-profit organizations when helping people who need benefits?

Distributing benefits to students remains a challenge
What are the challenges or barriers to people seeking assistance?

Tackling the smallest piece that can lead to a domino effect
How do GovTech agencies strategize as a team to tackle problems situated in public services embedded in complex policies?‍
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Synthesized Insights

Learning about potential futures & how to work in government spaces

At the same time, we were also interviewing government technology companies in an effort to understand not just how benefits applications processes are currently running, but how they see them being improved with technological interventions and what it will take to get there.

This group of stakeholders focused less on what the landscape is currently and more on what the ideal state of benefits applications can be with focused efforts on the parts of all entities involved.

These companies take a pragmatic approach to working on problems like this, involving setting a narrow scope to address a small "slice of the pie" in the problem space and understanding that trust is key in building relationships and moving initiatives forward.

AND THAT'S NOT EVERYTHING

What's next?

Exploring design

We've begun implementing voice interfaces as a way to explore how we might improve the system. These efforts will continue as we think broadly about solutions.

Validating needs

We hope to move our research forward by analyzing what we've learned, focusing on specific, actionable parts, and testing solution concepts with stakeholders to see what is valuable.

Embedding policy

Policy is at the center of the work on any kind of government-regulated process, and benefits programs are no exception. We intend to embed policy into our solutions and imagine a policy blueprint that can inform the future of these programs.