Improving IT Support Workflows at NYC Housing Authority
by Janet Chen
The Challenge
How does a 90-year old government agency with 12,000 employees embrace technology on all fronts: hardware, software, and the processes that come with managing both? Part of the struggle lies in IT support — an often overlooked yet crucial part of every business. At the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA), IT support employees already process 9.2k tickets per month. Yet with increased need for digital devices and business software, IT issues are bound to increase.
Without an intuitive and useful workflow for resolving IT issues, employees may feel frustrated, stuck, and unable to complete their tasks. They are less able to serve the 300,000+ tenants who live in NYCHA’s public housing developments in NYC. What tickets were NYCHA employees even submitting to resolve their IT issues? What did the ticket submission workflow look like? Knowing this, how could we improve the usability of the ticketing website?
I answered questions like these during my 12 week fellowship at the NYCHA. As a Siegel PiTech PhD Impact Fellow, and the sole UX Researcher in the IT department, I had the autonomy to define the research goals, select the most suitable methods, and lead interviewing, analysis, and prototyping.
The Research Process
Phase One: Understanding Current Workflows and Usability Testing
This was my first time working for the government and, therefore, understanding the goals of NYCHA IT, in particular, was a key initial challenge. After figuring out how this project fit into the high-level priorities of the agency, I created the research goals and drafted a two-phase research plan with my managers based on upcoming projects. I made sure to receive feedback from my manager, Lee Sondeno and Kirsten Jardine, and even engaged them as initial testers to keep them informed throughout.
I began with an exploratory interview paired with a usability test of the existing IT support website (”Service Portal”). Since I wanted to discover participants’ current workflows, I thought that grounding the interview in the Service Portal would help participants remember and elaborate on their experiences. This worked well as most participants had seen some but not all of the Service Portal.
As a UX researcher, my responsibilities included scheduling participants, writing the scenarios for usability testing, and drafting a usability survey. I made sure to include my managers in affinity diagramming to gather buy-in in the data analysis stage.
Participants differed in their experience with IT and the Service Portal. Some participants seriously doubted IT Support’s abilities and others found them to be helpful and reliable. Yet, all participants had some issue with the Service Portal and many preferred calling a friend in IT to submit a ticket.
Phase Two: Prototyping and User Feedback
In Phase One, I identified 19 changes based on participant data that could improve the IT ticketing experience (e.g., consistency in naming, increasing the findability of the site, and various design tweaks to improve usability). In a design session with one manager, we sketched out a variety of improvements that we wanted to see based on the proposed changes. Based on these changes, I created a low-fidelity demo on Figma. You can find the demo here.
I then returned to the same set of participants and asked them for their feedback on the new set of prototypes. To be sure, a few participants disliked parts of the new prototype and found it to be “boring”, have “too many options”, and preferred the existing system. However, the overall feedback was mostly positive. This was supported by a follow-up survey I collected that measured the baseline with the old website against the prototype.
Janet Chen
The Research Impact
Deliverables:
A set of proposed design changes to the Service Portal, ranked by feasibility and UX Impact, based on the interviews, survey, and design workshop.
A set of design guidelines for new software at NYCHA. These design guidelines came from the interviews and understanding the unique nature of NYCHA and its employees and tenants.
A human-centered design workshop to teach the basics to NYCHA employees. I created several interactive, collaborative activities for workshop participants to engage with and learn human-centered design methods in a hands-on and fun way.
A database of resources for conducting future UXR at NYCHA such as links and documentation on the research project that I conducted.
Impact and a Path Forward
While my Impact Fellowship has concluded, I am staying in touch with the team at NYCHA to see the ongoing impact of my work there. Through user testing, exploratory interviews, and prototyping, I’ve outlined a set of improvements for the next iteration of the Service Portal. Future work could include conducting an evaluative test to measure UX improvements and KPIs.