Maternity Allowance is a payment you can get when you take time off to have a baby.
A mother might be entitled to claim Maternity Allowance, a government paid, tax-free benefit that is paid for up to 39 weeks, if they are ineligible for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) from their employer or if they are self-employed.
There is no digital service for Maternity Allowance. The current process is applied for using a paper form called a Maternity Allowance (MA1) claim form.
Role and responsibilities
As the only Interaction Designer on the project, it was my responsibility to create the following assets for the discovery and alpha phases:
- User Journey Map’s for Citizens and DWP Agents
- Service Blueprint (in the absence of a dedicated Service Design resource)
- A card sort prototype
- Prototype
- Various graphics for assessment presentations
- Present the Interaction Design findings and iterative improvements at assessments
Card sort prototype
During COVID-19, there was no face-to-face user research allowed at DWP, so our user researcher needed a good way to gather data quickly from users. I quickly devised a prototype that would present a number of selectable options that users could tell us were applicable for certain scenarios.
Our aim was to cut down the number of non-mandatory questions asked on the MA1 form and to allow for smoother and quicker claim processing for our agents and customers.
No research could be collected and stored, as per DWP policy, so we observed the user’s answers and made notes, which turned out to be a very effective tool during discovery.
User Journey maps
I created two ‘as-is’ user journey maps, one for claimants and one documenting the current process for DWP agents.
DWP agents are internal staff who use 16 different systems and processes in order to fully process a maternity allowance claim from start to finish. As the journey map shows, it’s a long and outdated process, using many legacy internal systems that are unreliable and elongate the task at hand because of their complexity and cumbersome user interfaces.
Discovery outcome
As a team, we decided that we would deliver better value to DWP by completely digitising the staff facing elements of the maternity allowance claim process, with the aim of translating that into a citizen facing digital service when we reach the beta phase of the internal system.
Service Blueprint
In the absence of a dedicated Service Design resource on the project, it was my responsibility to create a Service Blueprint that would show the front and back stage interactions for the entire maternity allowance claim process, from a claimant’s point of view.
I combined the user journeys into one seamless document and aimed to show the user’s emotions as they progressed through the process and highlight the pain points that they encounter throughout and the user needs that we must address.
The aim was to identify where improvements could be made and what we could do as a team to eliminate the pain points. In Beta, we would aim to progress this ‘as-is’ blueprint into a ‘to-be’ blueprint that fixes these issues for users.
Prototype
We carried out over 50 usability sessions with internal DWP staff, creating seven iterations of the prototype, identifying problems and aiming to fix them with each iteration.
The main focus turned out to be the summary screen, where the final claim information is confirmed to agents. Instilling trust in the decision that the system had made proved to be the hardest thing to do.
We went through various designs and ended up showing much more information than we anticipated, solely to help ensure users that the system had considered every detail, rule and nuance that they do when they manually decide a claim.
We explored the use of tabs to try and separate information across numerous screens, but users weren’t confident about clicking them, so did little to explore anything beyond the first screen.
We explored a familiar looking blue ‘key details bar’ but ultimately, users missed it. So we reverted to a clear ‘key details bar’ above an anchored navigation bar that followed users down screen as they scrolled, but also allowed them the ability to go directly to the various sections on the screen via anchor links.
We started including employment information in order to further increase their trust in the system.
Conclusion
DWP staff praised our efforts and reacted well to the news of a new, dedicated digital service that is fit for purpose and takes their needs into consideration. They loved the prototype and look forward to using the service to process claims. They will no longer need to access 16 different systems and processes in order to complete a claim — this will replace all of that for them and make their job exponentially easier.
We passed our internal DWP Discovery health-check in 2021 and passed a thorough, GDS-style internal Alpha assessment in April 2022. Work started on Private Beta in April 2022.