Travis County
Jury Management App

Travis County summons 140,000 jurors every year. The newly redesigned Jury Management app handles everything—from summoning and trial assignment to managing juror information, email communication, impaneling, assigning jurors to trials, payments and donations.

Jury duty should be an easy and painless experience from start to finish, not just for the Travis County jurors but also for every court staff member involved.

Role
Product Designer + Researcher

Category
App Design

Audience
Travis County Jury Clerks + Court Executives
Travis County residents eligible for Jury Service  

Time Period
2020 - 2021

The Problems

• Jury clerks were previously juggling between three legacy jury management apps that overlapped in functionalities and resulted in duplicated efforts.
• These apps hadn't been updated in over 10 years. 
• The outdated apps generated a high volume of customer support tickets and calls for the Travis County App Dev team. 
• The high support demand also indicated user frustration and inefficiencies in the current legacy systems.
  

Research

To kickoff the project, I started by conducting individual user interviews with 8 jury clerks and 5 court executives to understand their day-to-day workflows, frustrations, needs, and expectations. A big part of my approach was getting to know the emotional and logistical challenges clerks faced.

I discovered how time-consuming their multitasking was and how they had to repeatedly enter the same information into three overlapping systems. Like many government employees, jury clerks and court executives wear many hats, and their time was being wasted by duplicated work. 

I got the pleasure of building great relationships with these incredible clerks and executives—some even introduced me to their pets during virtual interviews!

This deeper understanding and empathy shaped my design decisions.

Goals 

I created How Might We (HMW) questions and invited the rest of the team to generate ideas with me! Some of these questions included:

• HMW simplify the jury clerks' day-to-day tasks managing the Travis County jury process in this new comprehensive app?
• HMW wrangle in insane amounts of complexity about the jury process and break it down gracefully?
• HMW reduce the number of customer support tickets and calls by improving the usability and functionality of the jury management system?
  
• HMW streamline the tasks for jury clerks in order to reduce repetition and the potential for errors in managing jury-related activities?
  
• HMW simplify the entire jury management process, including summons, trial assignment, juror info, attendance, payments, and email communication, to make it an easier experience for everyone involved?

Usability Studies

The goal was to observe participants’ first reactions to the updated application and compare it to interactions with the previous app. I conducted 8 moderated usability comparison studies using the existing application and the prototype on InVision (RIP 🪦🫡).

Tasks Tested:

• Entering trial details and days.
  
• Entering trial attendance and donations.
  
• Approving trial payments.
  
• Editing juror information.
  
• Sending checks to SAP and voiding juror checks.
  

Findings:

• Users found the new design significantly easier to use.
  
• The readability of information was a major improvement.
  
• Having jurors for trial, attendance, donations, payment approval organized in the same spot was positively received.
  
• Users appreciated multiple ways to achieve the same goal and the visual improvements, such as darker alternating table row backgrounds.

Before & After

More High Fidelity Prototype Designs

The Outcomes

Achievements:

• Reduction in Support Tickets: Improved usability and consolidated functionalities significantly reduced the number of support tickets and calls.
  

• Improved Efficiency: Jury clerks could manage their tasks more efficiently, reducing duplicated efforts and errors.
  

• Positive Feedback: Received positive feedback from jury clerks and court executives on the app's ease of use and improved functionality.

Lessons Learned:

• Empathy in Design: Understanding the daily challenges of users through empathy-driven research was crucial in designing a solution that truly met their needs.
  
• Iterative Process: Continuous feedback and iterations were key to refining the app and ensuring it provided real value to users.