BuildLA: Draft Existing Customer Journey
The Approach
All of these city agencies have their own websites and processes, but what if they could be tied together, searchable and (in the future) function under one website/domain? What if we could consolidated redundant data collection and entry so we could expedite permits even faster?
The Landscape / Opportunity
There are many agencies that constituents can work with in order to build and develop their properties within the City of Los Angeles, namely Building & Safety, Public Works, City Planning & The Fire Department. Much of the data required from constituents is similar, or even the same across agencies.
Decision / Process Map (to baseline the current procedure)
This was a decision / process map I created so we could work through envisioning a new permitting process, that was easier, faster and better for the end user (as well as for the administrators of these agencies).
Lessons Learned
All these agencies have workflows that access many of the same databases, to achieve similar or the same outcomes in terms of permitting and on-site inspection work. This was a great find, since we knew we could consolidate data across the board as goal, along with building new interfaces to keep the integrity of the data accurate and high.
The UX Process
In order to market and create a website that could include all of the functionality of these connected agencies, we must first map how customers traverse the existing sites online now. We developed the illustration above so we could have nuanced conversations about what worked, what we could edit out, and what else we needed to build into this platform.
Final Thoughts
The City of LA should consider mapping out all of the flows of these four agencies, to expose where all of the redundant data collection occurs and mapping new processes that would address small sets of requirements to address multiple agencies (with the goal of consolidating experiences for the customer, as well as lightening the load for each agency).
Hiring an information architect, and user researcher and a business analyst (building a team) would be key in consolidating functions and improving the customer experience across all of the participating agencies, saving the City of LA and its citizens millions of dollars every year, as well helping constituents minimize their time spent to gain permits.