title. Interagency Framework and Toolkit for Financial Counseling
date. September 2021 - June 2022
city. New York City
role. Project Manager, Design Researcher, Facilitator and Strategist at 3x3 Design
Challenge: New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs and Workers Protection (DCWP) Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) was in search of a more organized process to internally manage their vetting and scoping process with other city agencies to deliver financial counseling. They were also seeking ways to effectively communicate to other city agencies about the different ways to partner with OFE and empower them with tools to co-design a mutually beneficial partnership.
Process: Led a discovery process with OFE internal staff and external stakeholders including funders and city agencies to understand process challenges, structural barriers and opportunities for enhanced communication and information sharing. This process included key informant interviews, focus groups and document reviews. We then ideated through co-design sessions with city agency partners and OFE staff on ways to address scoping needs, information gaps and outreach barriers that culminated in option development.
A strategic brief served to outline the set of options with a cost-benefit analysis, whereupon OFE staff chose the tools they believed to be most relevant. The design team at 3x3 created a set of prototype tools to walk through and conduct two rounds of testing with respective users (in this case OFE staff and city agencies) to validate purpose and determine usability.
Outcome: A set of internal tools that serve as the interagency framework, that includes an internal-facing scoping template, and discussion guide, resource and effort calculator. A set of tools that serve to communicate with city agency partners that include a digital interest form, mockup webpages, identity guidelines, presentation, scoping guide and referral guide.