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Unisys · 3 months

Ohio Courts Network (OCN)

A legacy court records system, rethought for child-welfare workers. It started with a 41-page audit and ended with a 10/10 rating.

UX ResearchHeuristic EvaluationInformation ArchitectureDesign SystemsAccessibilityPublic Sector
Ohio Courts Network (OCN) cover

Context

Child-welfare workers use the Ohio Courts Network to find a person and pull together their court, jail, protection order and motor vehicle records. It’s the start of almost every case. The legacy system had become hard to use, and caseloads kept growing. It was one part of a wider next-generation Child Welfare Support System.

My role

Researcher and designer, over three months.

What I found

I audited the system against usability heuristics, visual design principles and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and mapped every route through its navigation. The report ran to 41 pages.

Search, the one task everyone depends on, scored 40 out of 100. Navigation scored 38. Visual hierarchy managed 25. Accessibility had serious gaps at Level AA. In plain terms, people couldn’t find things, mistakes crept into the data, and the interface looked its age.

What I did

I rebuilt search from the ground up and restructured the navigation around the seven groups who use it, from intake workers to foster parents. For key screens I showed stakeholders two or three real layout options rather than a single answer. A new design system, with clear colour roles and an Inter type scale, targeted Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Level AA. The final designs covered web and tablet, including a quick menu for jumping through long records.

Outcome

A project stakeholder rated every phase 10 out of 10: ideation, low-fidelity design, visual design and communication.

“Throughout the process, you (and team) did a great job on listening to the issues and current design… Overall, could not have been more pleased!”

Ohio Courts Network project stakeholder

Project board

Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designsCourts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 2)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 3)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 4)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 5)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 6)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 7)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 8)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 9)Courts Network case study board: problem statement, process, onboarding questionnaire, user groups, heuristic evaluation, findings, navigation audit, pain points, user flow, wireframes, moodboards, colour scheme, typography and high-fidelity web and tablet designs (part 10)

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