Veteran Appeals Experience
How might we redesign the VA Appeals system to facilitate a positive experience for Veterans?
The Challenge
Every year, over a million Veterans file claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA). The vast majority of Veterans, when they receive their decision, won’t appeal. But over one hundred thousand will. They’ll appeal because they disagree with their decision, because they don’t understand their denial, or because it’s their right. When they do—whether they know it or not—they will enter into a process that takes years, sometimes decades, to complete.
The system is broken with over 440,000 appeals pending, low morale due to overburden staff, and ineffective policy decisions from on high. Traditional problem-solving approaches were insufficient. The challenge required an innovative approach to systems thinking and human-centered design methods to discover what mattered most to the Veteran in order to redesign the system.
My Actions & Methods
I led design teams, developed the research protocol, and conducted 100+ interviews across the nation to understand the Veteran’s journey in the appeals process. The appeals process is complex with ambiguous boundaries and required a large sample size. The goal is to go beyond just demographics and to deeply understands the motivations, behaviors, and goals.
I facilitated participatory design workshops with Veterans, VA executive leadership, and White House staffers. Then synthesized insights into personas, journey maps, infographics, and a final engaging human-centered design report.
Methods included semi-structured user interviews, empathy, storytelling, contextual inquiry, affinity diagrams, and qualitative + quantitative analysis.