Addressing equity barriers with inclusive service design

Recently I was asked to evaluate an Australian university’s reasonable adjustment plan service (RAPs).

RAPs is a service designed to address inequitable access to education.

Using co-creation to understand the end-to-end experience, we prioritised improvement opportunities based on impact and technical complexity.

The challenge

  • Understand the end-to-end front-stage and back-stage journeys
  • Evaluate current state pain points, channels, processes and touch points
  • Prioritise opportunities for improvements

The problem to solve

I needed to reach out to accessibility communities of practice, students, health care professionals and internal stakeholders to find out what was working well and where there was room to improve services for students living with a disability.

  • Start with a deep understanding of students living with a disability
  • Work across organisation silos and include users to co-create a future state vision
  • Evaluate opportunities for improvement, using service design rules of thumb
  • Shift thinking from current solutions to problem statements

Outputs

A customer journey diagram showing episodes of an end-to-end journey, divided into swim lanes for user types, channels, system actions and apin points
First, we identified front and back-stage actors, episodes and high-level user stories.
A quadrant diagram showing 109 user stories written on post it notes, arranged by priority with highest value and lowest effort in the top right, and lowest value and highest effirt in the bottom left
Then, we prioritised opportunities by estimating build complexity and business value.
Diagram showing a complex process flow for several front-stage and back-stage use cases
Finally, using a deep knowledge of the user journey, prioritised user stories, and principles of service design as inputs, I facilitated workshops to redesign key processes.

Key findings

Based on key findings from my research, I gave the following advice to the university.

  • Manual, financial and geographical barriers
    Paper-based medical processes should be digitised to reduce financial barriers for students, and relieve practitioner administration.
  • Seamless automation, initiated early
    Early self-identification should initiate automated, sequenced workflows to reduce delays and reliance on process familiarity.
  • Multi-system interoperability
    Multi-system journeys should be further integrated with clear next steps where re-platforming is not yet possible.
  • Accessibility guidelines compliance
    An experience uplift should better support equitable access, and a roadmap is needed for WCAG compliance.
  • Levels and types of access
    Disconnected front line support processes should be seamlessly connected to improve information sharing and secure access.
  • Relationships start before the CRM record
    Customer records should start before the application process so that candidates don’t need to repeat themselves.