Project Overview
As part of IBM Client Engineering, I led the discovery and experience design effort for an AI-powered case management solution designed to modernize public benefits application processing. The engagement focused on helping caseworkers process applications faster, reduce manual work, improve compliance, and deliver a better citizen experience through intelligent automation, document processing, and AI-assisted decision support.
I facilitated stakeholder workshops to uncover operational pain points, align on a future-state vision, and define the solution approach. I then translated those insights into wireframes and workflow designs that served as the blueprint for production-ready dashboards and user experiences developed by the engineering team.
Business Challenge
The agency faced increasing operational pressures due to evolving program integrity and compliance requirements. Caseworkers were spending significant time manually entering data, reviewing documents, validating eligibility, and following up on missing information.
Key challenges included:
- High volumes of manual data entry.
- Lengthy application review cycles.
- Inconsistent handling of exceptions.
- Growing compliance and audit requirements.
- Limited visibility into case processing workflows.
- Increasing pressure to improve citizen outcomes while controlling costs.
Solution
Our team designed an AI-powered case processing workflow that streamlines application intake and eligibility determination. The solution leveraged:
- AI-powered document understanding
- OCR and handwriting recognition
- Speech-to-text processing
- Intelligent case routing
- Policy-aware workflow automation
- Explainable and auditable AI decision support
The future-state experience automatically extracts information from submitted documents, pre-populates applications, assists with eligibility determination, identifies missing requirements, and routes cases to the appropriate teams with full auditability.
Design Process
1. Discovery & Alignment Workshop
- Facilitated stakeholder workshops to understand existing workflows and uncover operational bottlenecks.
- Aligned business, technical, and policy stakeholders around a common vision and MVP scope.
2. Service Design & Workflow Mapping
- Mapped current-state and future-state journeys across the application lifecycle, identifying opportunities to eliminate friction for both caseworkers and applicants.
3. Experience Design
- Created wireframes and workflow concepts that translated complex case management processes into intuitive user experiences.
- These designs became the foundation for production dashboard development and solution demonstrations.
4. Solution Definition
- Partnered with architects, consultants, and engineers to align user needs with AI capabilities, operational requirements, and compliance expectations.
5. Executive Storytelling & Business Value
- Developed experience narratives and value-based demonstrations that connected operational improvements to measurable financial, workforce, and citizen outcomes.
My Role
- Led discovery and stakeholder workshops
- Facilitated business and user pain-point analysis
- Defined future-state workflows and experience strategy
- Created wireframes and experience concepts in Figma
- Designed dashboards and caseworker experiences
- Bridged business, policy, and technical requirements
- Collaborated with developers to translate designs into working solutions
- Helped articulate ROI and business value for executive stakeholders
Impact
- 60–80% reduction in manual data entry.
- 60% reduction in exception handling time.
- 3–5 days faster application approvals.
- Significant staff capacity redirected to higher-value work.
- ~20-point increase in citizen satisfaction (projected).
- Multi-million-dollar annual savings potential.
- Improved compliance, auditability, and fraud prevention capabilities.