State of California - Child Welfare Digital Services

This project was conducted for a federal client and is subject to confidentiality agreements. Therefore, specific details, sensitive data, and certain visuals cannot be disclosed publicly. However, the overall UX approach, methodologies employed, and general impacts will be shared to demonstrate the scope and value of my contributions.

Problem Statement

My primary goal was to lead a team of multiple designer to strategically transform the State of California’s legacy Child Welfare Digital Services, transitioning from a cumbersome, paper-based management system to an intuitive, user-centered digital platform. The vision was to empower county officers, enhance productivity, minimize administrative errors, and vastly improve accessibility and efficiency through thoughtful design innovation.

Scope

I meticulously scoped the project by collaborating directly with key stakeholders—including field county officers, supervisors, and administrative staff across multiple California counties—to deeply understand their workflows, pain points, and needs. My approach encompassed conducting thorough initial discovery sessions, contextual inquiries, and observational research. This allowed me to accurately document the complexities and inefficiencies inherent in the existing paper-based system.

Research

To deeply inform the digital transformation, I spearheaded comprehensive UX research by organizing multiple in-person sessions in California—including urban, suburban, and rural environments—to capture an authentic representation of user experiences across different sectors and demographics. My primary objective was to uncover hidden insights, clearly map operational inefficiencies, and identify real-world challenges faced daily by county officers, caseworkers, supervisors, and administrative staff.

This immersive, hands-on research phase was intentionally designed to build empathy and establish a nuanced understanding of users’ needs. I conducted in-depth, face-to-face interviews, to clearly understand  field officers during their typical workday, and facilitated observational sessions directly at their work environments.

Deliverables

Lucidchart User Flows & Journey Maps

Created clear, detailed visual diagrams illustrating the complexity and redundancies of current paper-based workflows. These visuals were strategically segmented by user type, geographic sectors, and key task scenarios, highlighting friction points and inefficiencies.

Persona Creation

Clearly documented insights were organized by user sector (e.g., urban vs rural counties), as well as user roles (e.g., caseworkers, supervisors, admin staff), allowing targeted design interventions that directly addressed sector-specific challenges.

Design System

At the core of my UX design expertise lies my strength in strategically developing and managing robust, scalable, and intuitive design systems. My approach consistently results in cohesive and accessible user experiences, accelerated development cycles, and enhanced product quality—critical components that resonate deeply with design-driven organizations.

I leverage the Atomic Design methodology to structure my design systems into clearly defined, reusable UI components, starting from foundational elements (atoms), combining them into complex patterns (molecules and organisms), and eventually assembling them into cohesive screens (templates/pages).

Key Activities

  • Designing meticulously documented foundational elements (colors, typography, grids, spacing scales, icons)

  • Creation of consistent, reusable UI patterns (buttons, form elements, navigation structures, data visualizations)

  • Establishing interactive states (hover, active, error states, etc.)

Comprehensive Style Guide & Documentation

I deliver detailed style guides and documentation using industry-standard tools Figma, that clearly articulate design principles, usage guidelines, interaction models, and accessibility standards.

  • Components Included:
    • Typography hierarchy, responsive grids, spacing systems
    • Color palettes (primary, secondary, semantic states)
    • Iconography, illustrative styles
    • Interaction patterns and UI behavior guidelines
    • Accessibility best practices and compliance documentation

My deliverables include fully interactive, reusable UI components, clearly categorized and well-annotated for development teams to integrate swiftly into production environments.

  • Components Delivered:
    • Form components (text fields, selects, checkboxes, radios, toggles)
    • Interactive components (modals, tooltips, notifications, menus)
    • Navigational patterns (breadcrumbs, pagination, tabs, sidebars)
    • Complex data visualization components (tables, charts, dashboards)

 

My design systems are intentionally built with multi-platform scalability in mind, allowing seamless adaptation across web, mobile (iOS, Android), and emerging digital platforms. This ensures a consistent user experience while significantly reducing engineering overhead and accelerating design and development cycles.

Feedback & Task Organization

Effectively managing user feedback, design iterations involving multiple team members, and cross-functional collaboration is foundational to exceptional UX work. Throughout my design projects, I consistently utilize Jira as my primary tool for systematically capturing, organizing, and actioning stakeholder feedback. My structured approach ensures continuous improvement, clear communication, and transparency—essential qualities highly valued by innovative design teams at top companies.

Leveraging Jira’s agile project management capabilities, I structure tasks into clearly defined Epics, Stories, Tasks, and Subtasks. This approach enables effective management of complex UX projects by breaking them down into manageable, trackable units aligned with agile sprints.

Cross Functional Collaboration

I utilize Jira to facilitate seamless collaboration between design, engineering, QA, and product teams. By organizing tasks clearly, providing frequent updates, and ensuring transparency, I keep cross-functional partners aligned, informed, and engaged throughout the UX design lifecycle.

Success Metrics

Following the deployment of the digital Child Welfare Services application, I established clear, measurable KPIs derived directly from initial project objectives, field research insights, and user pain points.Which clearly resulted in reduction in administrative time, decreased error rate and improved productivity because of improved streamlining of the system.