A One Stop Shop

Apply, Win & Maintain Broadband Infrastructure Grants

Overview:

Intergrants was founded through The Opportunity Project. A hackathon led by the U.S. Census Bureau and championed by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The challenge is to create digital tools for distributing grant money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last year.

Our tool focuses on guiding users through the complex process of applying for, winning and maintaining broadband grants.

Millions of Americans still live without access to internet, which is a huge disadvantage for healthcare, education, and career advancement. This tool will help underserved and under resourced communities compete fairly for the resources they need to prosper.

I came into this project in mid-September 2022, after the original team had created the initial product. During a three week sprint, I tested the product and recommended features and presented our findings to at The Census Opportunity Demo Session.

The work I have done so far:

  • Write questions for testing.

  • Conducted 3 moderated usability tests.

  • Distributed an unmoderated usability test on several platforms.

  • Synthesized findings with an affinity map.

  • Edited connections on the mid-fidelity prototype.

  • Participated in a design studio with the whole team.

  • Created sketches for new features.

  • Created a presentation outline for the group.

  • Presented new features and next steps at the MVP demo session.

My Contributions:

Methodology:

  • Usability Testing

  • Seconardy Research

    • Podcasts

    • Articles

    • Example Grants

  • Maze (Unmoderated Usability Testing)

  • Gathering users with Grant Experience.

  • Design Studio

  • Sketching

  • Mid-Fidelity Prototyping.

I am one of two new members of the UX research team for Intergrants. Before we could get a handle of the work ahead of us, we needed to deep dive into the work that had already been done.

This included the original persona, his journey mapping, user-flows, affinity maps, how might we statements, comparative and competitive analysis, etc.

What Has Been Done So Far:

Changing the The Problem Statement

Original Problem Statement: 

Under-served (low-resourced) community organizations need more accessible information and guidance through the complex grant application process so that they can confidently apply for broadband grants to help increase broadband access for all.

  1. Are we currently targeting the correct audience?

  2. Does our current platform help with the guidance of the complex grant process? I.E. All the documentation that is involved with the whole grant application process

New Problem Statement:

Individuals applying for broadband grants on behalf of underserved/low resourced communities such as state, local, tribal, territorial governments, and 501(c) charities, need more accessible information and guidance through the complex grant application process to apply for grants designed to help increase broadband access.

Gritty’s goals currently are to build broadband infrastructure for rural areas in Nevada but are rural areas the same as underserved?

Our platform currently focuses on the need to find grants and having the tools to easily apply for them, but does that make us competitive enough?

Getting to Know the Persona and How He Can Help Us Move Forward:

Un-Moderated Usability Testing Using Maze:

Maze allowed our team to reach a wider group of users. With such a short window of time before our presentation, we wanted to gather as much information as possible and sending a link vs sitting down for a moderated test was quite effective!

We collected data from users with an array of backgrounds with grant applications. It is important for our product to be easy to use for those who are less experienced, as well as those who are more experienced.

Maze made it easy for us to quickly test the new features that were suggested from the last iteration and presentation. The sharing feature received an 83.3% rate which tells me that the call to action is well placed and makes sense to the user.

We grouped specific comments about the share & notification features.

There were additional helpful comments about:

  • The Overall Design

  • The On-boarding Survey

  • The Grant Application Process

    • Networking

    • What happens when you win grant money

    • Information about who is providing the grant money.

Affinity Mapping for Moderated Usability Tests

From testing we discovered that navigating between the grant match page and the over view was not intuitive.

The Maze results showed us that users completed the task of finding the overview page through indirect paths.

User Insight About Flow

Our users were happy to see that they could turn their notifications on and off easily!

Its important to our users to know what kind of notification they will receive.

  • Missing application components

  • Dealines

  • No irrelevant notifications

Notifications:

Our users were very enthusiastic about the share feature but wanted to know exactly how the information would be share and where.

Would it be in the form of a PDF?

Would other members of the team have to go through the on-boarding process to access the information?

Do we really need to send this information over Facebook? What about virtual work spaces like Trello, Slack, Miro or Mondays?

Sharing:

A One Stop Shop!

Full Team Design Studio

Submitting Applications:

View Application and Updates

Submitting Reports After Winning the Grant

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