Contract Management for Māori Iwi

Helping iwi manage their contracts and fulfil their values.
Business software
Web design
Student project
My role

Research & analysis
User interviewing
Usability testing
Wireframing & prototyping

Tools

Figma
Miro

Timeline

12 weeks
Mar - June 2022

Type

2-person group
‍Student assignment
Client project

We were asked to help Ocular improve their prototype for a contract-management tool for Māori iwi. This tool had to track contracts and how each one fulfilled the iwi's values.

The challenge

Iwi are complex entities. They have to act as businesses, nonprofits, and community organisations all at the same time. Iwi receive funding from the Crown, often in the form of contracts. These contracts provide money and assets to the iwi to be used to meet specific goals (called KPIs), such as increasing COVID vaccination rates. While iwi work to complete these KPIs, they also have internal values to uphold, set by the community.

Ocular wanted to help iwi manage their complexity with a contract-management tool. This software would give iwi one place to store contracts, track KPIs, and understand if they're meeting their values. My partner and I were asked to join the Ocular team by testing and iterating on their existing prototype.

our Solution

  • Create a set of key learnings about the prototype.

    • –

      Each learning is backed by insights obtained from usability testing.

    • –

      Learnings are written so that they can be applied to existing and future designs.

  • Create a high-fidelity prototype of the contract creation, contract view, and personal dashboard pages.

    • –

      Include examples of important interactions.

    • –

      Explain how each key learning informed the designs.

How did we do it?

Desk Research

Benchmark Testing

Mid-fi Prototyping

Usability Testing

Key Learnings
Hi-fi Prototyping

final prototype

Visit the prototype

Key Learnings

Values

Quantifying values is a difficult task because values are inherently qualitative.
Our solutions:
  • Provide text boxes for users to describe the impact a contract has on fulfilling each value.
  • Use likert scales to quantify impact as they mix qualitative and quantitative measurements.
  • Use two likert scales to split the quantification. This can simply the thought process needed for each question.

Exposure

Elements need to be shown multiple times or match users’ existing mental models to be understood.
Our solutions:
  • Show the value type icons in the contract input form so that users are familiar with them when they encounter them on the Contract Page and Dashboard.
  • Replace the previous menu with a sidebar menu as it more closely matches users’ existing mental models.

Layout

Vertical layouts more accurately represent users prior mental models.
Our solutions:
  • Replace the two column layout with a single column so that users can easily scroll down to see the next element and no content is missed.
  • Group information by subject matter, especially in input forms. This helps users keep track of the context of what they're looking at.

simple language

Simple language and familiar terminology helps users understand what they’re reading.
Our solutions:
  • Use conversational language and full sentences in the contract input form in order to make each form input clear. Phrasing each input title as a question creates a back-and-forth between the user and the tool.
  • Limit unfamiliar terms, like "Business Units" or "Workstreams", in favour of words like "Deliverable" that are already being used by the intended audience.

Page purpose

Pages need clear call-to-actions to help users understand what to do on each page.
Our solutions:
  • Give each page a clear title and give form pages titles in the format of actions.
  • Make the status of deliverables more obvious on the Contract Page.

User assumptions

Based on one user interview with an iwi contract manager, we made assumptions about how all contract managers may use the tool.
Implemented assumptions:
  • Added the ability to store contract PDFs in the tool.
  • Created a notifications side sheet to help users who manage contracts keep up to date on what's happening.
  • Created a personal dashboard so that users who action KPIs can keep track of their assigned tasks.

Lessons learned

It can be difficult to get unique insights when you can’t talk to your intended audience.
While we were analysing our testing, my partner and I found it difficult to find unique insights about our prototypes. A lot of this came down to the fact that we didn’t test with the actual audience for the product. Because of this, we focused on general usability topics, like how clear the writing was. We weren’t able to dig into how useful the tool really was, and I found that frustrating at times.
Last project
Infographic Poster based on D&D
emi.reed2@gmail.com
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