CASA volunteers with full-time jobs need a system to effectively take, organize, review, upload meeting notes and information, enabling them to provide the best recommendations and insights when writing court reports.
Our approach to this problem is broken into three milestones:
1. Develop a framework that communicates meaningful research findings and analysis about the existing process/problem space
2. Create a vision document that displays three solutions and analyzes how it addresses pain points of volunteers
3. Design a mid-fidelity functionality-based prototype that serves volunteers' needs
Process and Activities
Goals
Research Questions
By developing our knowledge of a CASA’s tasks, responsibilities, and roles through background research and interviews, we were able to answer four research questions that helped complete our framework and understanding
1. What is the journey of representing a child as a CASA?
2. What stakeholders are involved in the CASA ecosystem? How do CASAs communicate with these stakeholders and how often?
3. What are the CASA’s main tasks and responsibilities?
4. What are a CASA volunteer’s primary needs? How does the current system provide for these needs?
Example of research insights (volunteer's role throughout a case)
CoDesign Workshop
Our team conducted a codesign on Miro and had a facilitator guide our participants through two activities to help them understand the self-assigned values of the tasks these volunteers are doing. The goal of this workshop was to find the most valuable and time-consuming tasks of a CASA volunteer and identify their top three needs.
1. Value vs. Time-Matrix
We gave our participants a list of CASA tasks and responsibilities identified in phase 1 and had them categorize each task based on the time it takes and the value it offers the CASA and child. We then had them reflect on their experience with these tasks and generate ideas as to how they could be improved. Participants identified writing court reports as the most important and time consuming task in the CASA experience.
Simplified version of value vs. time-matrix
2. Identify Top 3 Needs and Ideate
We gave the participants a list of the 9 most relevant CASA needs that we identified through phase 1. After narrowing the list down to their personal top 3 needs, we had them generate ideas and possible solutions. The participants top three needs were:
Overview
Our team developed a mobile and web ecosystem for CASAs to upload and organize their notes and information to help them prepare for court. Our work represents a comprehensive and innovative approach to empowering CASAs with needed solutions at their fingertips. By developing these solutions, we hope to increase efficiency and make CASA responsibilities more manageable for full-time employees interested in becoming CASAs
Mobile Experience
Review recently scanned and uploaded documents
Quickly scan and upload new meeting notes
Create new/AI generated tags, and organize documents
Upload notes to MIC's server and view tags
Add and store contacts with detailed information
Filter through contacts by case, role, and tags
Web Experience
The desktop experience has similar features to the mobile application. However, compared to the mobile experience, it is utilized for writing, reading, and reviewing reports. This allows for CASA volunteers to have an easier time preparing for court. The example of a desktop screen shown on the right has features that have the ability to view upcoming meetings, review and edit notes, and generate reports by integrating AI.
Example of a desktop screen
