FACTS
New York Campaign Finance Board
Overview
For over 20 years, the New York Campaign Finance Board has run its operations using proprietary software called CFIS – (Campaign Finance Information System). During this course of time, technology has improved dramatically, making this legacy system very much outdated. Consequently, an initiative was created to redesign this software and transform many of the internal business processes.
The existing campaign finance software was used by more than six different business units to perform business tasks that were part of the agencies operating model. The system was very complex – built iteratively over 20 years as new laws and regulations required new software components to be added.
Project Delivery
Due to the complex nature of this project, a significant amount of discovery analysis needed to be performed before, and UX work could be started. The starting point of the project began with performing a user experience audit of existing systems and business processes. Afterward, several user research exercises were conducted to formulate design and technology strategy.
Measures of Success
Prior to initiating the delivery of the project, it was essential to identify and agree upon the project’s critical measures of success. Because without knowing what success looks like, how do you know that you are driving on the right path?
Process
One of the biggest challenges of designing a new unified application that contained all of the functionality desired by the users required first understanding the functional components and data structure of the numerous systems that were interlinked and transferred data between each other.
To achieve a clear understanding, many diagrams were needed to document the existing relationship between systems. Furthermore, each of the systems needed to be analyzed to understand where its functionality would be redesigned in the new FACTS system.
User Research
In order to understand the user’s pain points, motivations, and goals, one-on-one contextual interviews and user research workshops were conducted to help stakeholders develop the proper design strategy.
Contextual interviews
As to obtain detailed feedback on specific business processes, one-on-one interviews were performed in numerous users’ workspaces to observe how they work.
Research Workshops
In order to quantify the perspectives of the masses, design workshops were conducted to capture various dimensions of opinions related to the current business software being used to processes each unit’s business functions.
User Wants & Needs Prioritization
After performing design workshops for over six different business units, the results were put placed into spreadsheets for each unit to review and make further prioritizations.
Technical Landscape
One of the biggest challenges of designing a new unified application that contained all of the functionality desired by the users required first understanding the functional components and data structure of the numerous systems that were interlinked and transferred data between each other.
To achieve a clear understanding, many diagrams were needed to document the existing relationship between systems. Furthermore, each of the systems needed to be analyzed to understand where its functionality would be redesigned in the new FACTS system.
Personas
After performing all the necessary user research, personas were created to solidify all of the key insights and findings that were acquired from the user research activities. The personas contained important dimensions such as wants, needs, goals, and pain points, which could help the project team prioritize system functionality and make more strategic design decisions.
Site Map
To help all stakeholders quickly gain a perspective of the scale of the current system and what screens would need to be designed in the future, site maps were made illustrating both the current and future information architecture.
User Flows
As each workflow module as researched and understood, user flows and wireframes were created to communicate the interaction design through the proposed designs.
Wireframes
To facilitate the validation of the business and user requirements, abstract mockups called “wireframes” were created for the stakeholder to review and suggest modifications.
Visual Design
After the wireframes have been finalized, high fidelity visual designs can be created using a design system that specifies user interface elements such as colors, spacing, typography, and more.
