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[CAIA Intake] Apply for a medallion #85541

Open barron-charles opened 5 months ago

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

Content, accessibility, information architecture (CAIA) new initiative collaboration request

Use this ticket to request collaboration on a new initiative with the sitewide content, accessibility, and information architecture (CAIA) team.

About your team

About your initiative

Which of these descriptions best fits the work we’ll partner on?

Select all that apply.

What's the nature of your initiative and desired outcomes?

Tell us briefly about your work and the outcomes you’re aiming to achieve.

We hope to have accessibility and content specialist analyze the work we've conducted so far regarding VA Form 40-1330M, Apply for a medallion in a private cemetery form. In this form, we create a new digital form applying for a medallion to fix to a private headstone or marker.

We hope to have the content team analyze the content decisions we've made so far, and provide recommendations for further improvements. This includes the entire medallions form, and the two potential solutions we have so far for multiple signatures. You can add comments in the Figma file as needed.

We hope to have accessibility team members assess the entire medallions form, and provide accessibility recommendations for further improvements. We ask the accessibility team to look over this DocuSign link to test for accessibility for ongoing feedback, DocuSign link. If the accessibility team could prioritize this DocuSign effort, it would be much appreciated.

Note: There will be another DocuSign link to add to the ticket to assess this week. Update: The link has been added and updated.

Collaboration timeframe

Note: We work on nearly every OCTO product and manage all unauthenticated content on VA.gov, so we will need to prioritize intake requests based on overall workload and VA and OCTO priorities.

Is this work tied to a Congressional mandate, change in law or policy, or upcoming event with a specific deadline?

Where are you at in your timeline?

Tell us briefly about what you're working on now (such as initial discovery, wireframing, or usability research planning) and add any known dates for upcoming milestones or deadlines.

Initial discovery, wireframing

Will you release this new product incrementally (for example, release to 25% of users to start)?

Collaboration cycle

Which phases of the collaboration cycle have you completed?

Select all that apply.

We have not started the collaboration cycle for this effort yet.

Collaboration cycle ticket

If you’re going through the collaboration cycle, provide your ticket number and link:

I will update when we have the ticket number.

Supporting artifacts

Provide links to any supporting artifacts that can help us better understand your initiative and begin collaboration. Include artifacts like your product outline, user flows, mockups and prototypes, or any draft content.

Next steps

### a11y Tasks
- [x] Attend CAIA's Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting Tuesday, July 9 at 1:45 p.m. - 2 p.m. ET - `SK Attended`
- [x] Attend Kickoff with MSS Team Wednesday, July 10 at noon ET - `SK Attended`
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/87533
- [x] **DocuSign** [Critical and Major Issues Reported](https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/87533#issuecomment-2218306403) in A11Y Audit added to Kickoff Agenda (shared with Shira).
- [x] **Future Item:** **Figma Prototype Audit** when file is ready (2-4 weeks from 7/10/2024) - MSS team will notify us via this ticket - `Jamie` RCVD `10/9/2024` Ticket created 94735
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/94735
### Content Tasks
- [x] Attend CAIA's Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting Tuesday, July 9 at 1:45 p.m. - 2 p.m .ET
- [x] Attend Kickoff with MSS Team Wednesday, July 10 at noon ET
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/87873
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/92924
### IA Tasks
- [x] Attend CAIA's Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting Tuesday, July 9 at 1:45 p.m. - 2 p.m. ET
- [x] Attend Kickoff with MSS Team Wednesday, July 10 at noon ET
- [ ] #88025
### CAIA Ops Tasks
- [x] Send out invites for the KO and Pre-KO
- [x] Attend CAIA's Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting Tuesday, July 9 at 1:45 p.m. - 2 p.m. ET
- [x] Attend CAIA's Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting Tuesday, July 9 at 1:45 p.m. - 2 p.m. ET
### Memorials Self-Service Team Tasks
- [x] **Post Kickoff Action Items** [7/10/2024 c/o A's comments](https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/85541#issuecomment-2221042164)
- [x] **Reviewing the accessibility audit** - will make a decision about using DocuSign for the secondary signature flow and let CAIA know.
- [x] **Figma File** - Team will be working on the file over the next 2-4 weeks (post-kickoff meeting)
laurwill commented 5 months ago

Hey @barron-charles , could you give us a bit more info about the use case for the Docusign form you linked here, and how the Docusign form relates to the online form you're building on VA.gov?

From a quick glance, it looks like Veterans and family members would use the VA.gov online form in your Figma designs to request a medallion. And then cemetery staff would get a Docusign link that pulls in the info from the Veteran or family member's submitted online form, and they would use that link to confirm the info. But I also see this screen where the VA.gov form user can say that they are cemetery staff.

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

Hi @laurwill, that's correct. We are actively looking into two solutions for obtaining multiple signatures for with this form, one for the applicant and one for the cemetery official. The first multiple signature solution is the alternate form solution and the second is the DocuSign solution. We will soon narrow these options down to one.

The DocuSign solution pulls in only fields and data necessary for the cemetery official to see, review, and in some instances edit (if applicable specifically to the cemetery official). The order of those fields and how they are arranged might be slightly different with the applicant section. That screen you shared is the relationship to Veteran screen for the applicant, and based on what they select, would impact where the user goes next in the form. It also dictates what the cemetery official will review later on in the DocuSign portion.

laurwill commented 5 months ago

Thanks @barron-charles ! So in the Docusign option, does that mean that a cemetery official can select the relationship "cemetery" in the VA.gov form and fill in all the info themselves, and then go review that same info in the Docusign? Or would the Docusign option also remove the option to select "cemetery" or "funeral home" in the relationship screen?

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

No problem @laurwill! UX is still actively working through this, but if the cemetery option is selected from the relationship question for the applicant, there is discussion whether there would be a second signature for the cemetery official, so they wouldn't see the DocuSign or alternate form part at all. If the cemetery official still had to sign with DocuSign or the alternate form, the user wouldn't be able to edit that relationship question. It would be a read only field.

aprocik1 commented 5 months ago

@barron-charles, are you available for a kickoff meeting with our team on Wednesday 6/26 from 12-12:30 pm ET?

If you decide to move forward with DocuSign, our accessibility specialists will need to review it. We can start reviewing everything else (accessibility, content, and IA) in your form flow before then.

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

@aprocik1 we have a key team member with a meeting conflict at that time. Would you all have any availability Wednesday 6/26 between 1-2 p.m. ET? If not, we have some availability Friday afternoon.

strelichl commented 5 months ago

@barron-charles since our content team is out next week, let's start with an accessibility review and then regroup for a kickoff the following week. Would 12-12:30 or 12:30-1pm ET on Wednesday 7/12 work for your team?

@sara-amanda Naomi/I will follow up with you on the a11y review aspect!

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

Hi @strelichl 12-12:30 works well for us. I'll look out for that meeting invite.

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

@aprocik1 We've actually got quite a lot going on this week. Would you be able to meet 7/8 Monday, 2-3 p.m. or 7/9 Tuesday, 11-12 a.m.?

SarahKay8 commented 5 months ago

@barron-charles Hi! @coforma-jamie and I have completed both our desktop and mobile audit for VA Form 40-1330M. We uploaded the audit to your team folder which also contains supporting videos in reference to the issues we found! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m_WKRlkQIhlxeKf_TLuzOlid1rSNvaIp Thanks in advance! cc: @sara-amanda @CatherineHughes202 @NaomiPMC

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

@SarahKay8 A quick question. I'm getting a message "Web Application Blocked" opening the link. It says open a VA ServiceNow ticket or contact the Enterprise Service Desk. Are there other options in terms of sharing the audit and supporting videos?

coforma-jamie commented 5 months ago

@barron-charles let us know if you're able to open this: Accessibility audit_ Memorials Self-Service, Apply for a medallion DocuSign form.xlsx

barron-charles commented 5 months ago

@coforma-jamie That one is great! Thank you.

coforma-jamie commented 5 months ago

@barron-charles We were able to look at the sign and submit process as well. We didn't have the time to poke at everything, but found some issues we wanted to make you aware of:
Accessibility audit_ Memorials Self-Service, Apply for a medallion (sign and submit) DocuSign form.xlsx

barron-charles commented 4 months ago

@coforma-jamie Appreciate this. Yeah that part of the process is unique with DocuSign. Our team will review the spreadsheets and if there are any follow-on questions, let you know.

aprocik1 commented 4 months ago

Update: CAIA and product team members met today to align on this work. The product team will spend the next 2-4 weeks finalizing the designs in their Figma file. And they'll review the accessibility audit to make a decision about using DocuSign for the secondary signature flow. They'll comment in this ticket when they've made this decision and when they're ready for CAIA to return to this work. CAIA will deliver another accessibility audit, as well as content recommendations and IA specs for the full form, including the secondary signature flow.

coforma-jamie commented 4 months ago

Accessibility audit is complete, see #87533

barron-charles commented 4 months ago

@coforma-jamie do you mind describing the severity levels mentioned in the accessibility audit documents in a bit more detail? For example, how do the severity levels work alongside the new experience standards?

coforma-jamie commented 4 months ago

@barron-charles to be clear, CAIA can't actually set severity levels or block a launch of anything. :) These are what we're guessing the Collab Cycle folks would say if they took a look at it.

That being said, the severity levels are defined here. Read through it, but in short:

barron-charles commented 4 months ago

Thanks for the update @coforma-jamie and appreciate it!

barron-charles commented 4 months ago

Hi @aprocik1, the Medallions mockups are ready for you to continue working on. You'll see an updated process diagram in the file, and labels throughout helping explain how it works.

jennymayoco commented 3 months ago

hi @barron-charles, thanks for the update! @aprocik1 and I can review these this week and will follow-up with feedback or any questions.

barron-charles commented 3 months ago

@jennymayoco thank you!

jennymayoco commented 3 months ago

Hi @barron-charles @carly-yamrus I shared in Slack the simplified user flow CAIA created based on the latest designs in Figma and am sharing it here for reference as well. Would we be able to set up a chat with you all to do a walkthrough and align on the flow? We can def coordinate in this ticket if that's easier.

As I mentioned in Slack, my last day on CAIA will 8/20 and @kristinoletmuskat will be taking on this work and any related work in this benefit. I'll also be OOO 8/12-8/16 so feel free to tag @kristinoletmuskat if there are any questions.

cc @aprocik1

Image

aprocik1 commented 3 months ago

Update: CAIA and product team members will meet on Monday 8/19 at 12:30-1 pm ET to align on the online flow for VA Form 40-1330M. We'll discuss the IA recommendations outlined in Jenny's comment above.

kristinoletmuskat commented 3 months ago

Hey @barron-charles, here is a draft of the IA spec for this work (basically the URL, breadcrumb, and page placement).

Let me know if anything here looks off!

@CatherineHughes202 -- are you planning to roll this form out to 100% of users at once, or do a staged rollout to only a portion of users?

FYI @aprocik1 feel free to review as well -- we IDd 2 crosslinks we should make sure to review.

barron-charles commented 3 months ago

Hi @kristinoletmuskat, this looks awesome! Thank you.

I have a couple comments and questions:

  1. In terms of what fields trigger denials (I saw a sticky on the board), the ‘Is the Veteran's grave currently marked with a privately purchased, permanent, and durable headstone or marker?’ question affects eligibility in some cases. If the applicant selects no to the question, the NCA agent will contact the applicant gathering further information, making a final decision from that.
  2. In terms of plaques and urns, as we have it now it’s on the same page, combined with headstones, markers, and medallions. Are you you thinking of separating it?
jennymayoco commented 3 months ago

Hi @barron-charles! I can provide some background on plaques and urns. Our OCTO leads are collaborating with NCA partners to create a page that's just for plaques and urns, so eventually any info relating to that won't be on this headstones, markers and medallions page. The page placement Kristin documented is how the site map will look once the new page is live.

Here is the collab cycle ticket on that work, which will go through staging after stakeholder approval

barron-charles commented 3 months ago

Okay understood @jennymayoco. Appreciate the additional context with this.

barron-charles commented 3 months ago

@kristinoletmuskat @aprocik1 For reference we spoke with our client yesterday, and she mentioned there aren't any cases where a funeral home or cemetery would fill in the form for claimed remains.

kristinoletmuskat commented 3 months ago

Thank you @barron-charles!

Our CAIA team was chatting this week after our meeting earlier, and wanted to outline our flow-related recommendations in the ticket so that y'all have them.

One general goal I'll name is that we try to influence the overall service design of an experience to the extent we can to make it as easy as possible for everyone involved in the process (veteran, family member, funeral home, VBA processors). This is different from pure digitization, where we take the form and put it online verbatim. Sometimes clients think that product teams are doing pure digitization, and we need to educate them a little on the benefits of service design and plain language, and how it can make their lives easier too! There is some guidance related to this in this guide to digitizing forms.

Sometimes we inherit processes that are a little confusing, and we try to figure out if we can reduce the complexity to make it easier. Our success in this really varies by how receptive our clients are to simplification, so totally want to acknowledge that we aren't in that relationship as y'all are, and it might be difficult in this case.

We'd love to partner with y'all to try to make medallion-ordering easier for grieving relatives, even if our recs aren't ultimately persuasive enough for the client to move beyond just 'digitize this form'.

User flow recs and reasoning:

  1. We haven't currently seen any evidence that asking about the status of remains is required to make a determination about whether the applicant is eligible for a medallion, so we recommend removing those questions due to their distressing nature. We recommend really exploring the purpose of those questions with your client -- based on your last comment it seems like they think these questions are helpful for conditional routing, but a potential impact is that the questions are intrusive into a traumatic and personal situation for grieving family. It's also potentially confusing if the majority of applicants are family members (rather than cemeteries) -- they are unlikely to know what 'claimed' means re: remains.

  2. If we do determine that questions about remains are needed to make a determination, it would be ideal if we don't ask that question first because it is jarring and upsetting. If we do need it, we might be able to ask it later in the flow (perhaps only if the applicant is a cemetery), and explain why it's needed.

  3. When we digitize forms, we can’t introduce new questions that collect or store data (like for metrics). We should only be including data-gathering questions that are needed to make a benefit determination. The reason for this if we have a history in the VA of adding questions 'because the information might be useful eventually'. While that might be true, adding questions increases the burden for applicants, so the VA has decided that we can't add questions that do this. We CAN ask/add questions that help with conditional routing though!

Y'all mentioned that your client requested that we add questions about demographics, applicant gender, and family relationship. If you do decide to add these questions, the project will likely be blocked in staging review until they are removed. It's totally possible that your stakeholders aren't familiar with this limitation -- let us know if we can support in a dialogue about this!

Let us know if you would like to have a follow-up convo! We're trying to get the best result for veterans and their families, which we know you are too.

@DanielleThierryUSDSVA @aprocik1 @coforma-jamie

barron-charles commented 3 months ago

@kristinoletmuskat Thank you for the thoughtful response. There's a lot of interesting points to think through! I'll get back with you after talking more with other members of the team. It will give us a bit more time to think through more on these main points you mention.

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

Hi @kristinoletmuskat, we worked through your comments above, and we'll share the responses soon.

We have a couple more questions regarding the demographics section we were hoping to sync with you all for. NCA would be included in the call. Can you meet tomorrow at 1 p.m. or Monday sometime after 3 p.m.?

CC: @CatherineHughes202 @MichelleDieudonne @carly-yamrus

coforma-jamie commented 2 months ago

@barron-charles, @kristinoletmuskat is OOO until Monday, so it'll need to be next week. Just a heads up! I think your best bet is to check our calendars and throw a time on :)

kristinoletmuskat commented 2 months ago

Hey @barron-charles we would be happy to meet this week! Please include @aprocik1, @coforma-jamie , and @scjwalker on our end. (Sam is new to our team and will be taking over as the IA for burials for any work beyond this ticket!)

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

@kristinoletmuskat I just forwarded @scjwalker the meeting invite for this morning at 10:30. See you all soon–

aprocik1 commented 2 months ago

@carly-yamrus and @barron-charles, here's the content source of truth (SharePoint) for your design intent on Friday.

And here are a few follow up notes from our discussion yesterday:

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

cc @hermonica

kristinoletmuskat commented 2 months ago

Hey @barron-charles and @carly-yamrus , I wanted to ask about the second half of this flow, with the multi-signer signature situation. I know the user flows we currently have for this don't account for that part of the flow.

  1. Are you planning to go to design intent with the multi-signer thing? Is that part of your MVP, or are you currently thinking of it as a follow-on? I'm not sure what the actual requirements are.
  2. Do you have any user flows (not hi-fi designs) that map out some of the different options you've mentioned for the multi-signer part of the flow that we can look at?

Part of our job as CAIA is to see when new flow patterns are being created that don't yet exist, and make sure we understand the IA/global experience implications for things like this. This is a new pattern - a review and signature flow - and it also involves non-veteran audiences. We want to make sure we understand what authentication is needed and where the non-Veteran part of this might live on the site.

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

@aprocik1 Again, thank you for this! We are working through the responses now and assessing your recommendations.

Hi @kristinoletmuskat, here's responses to your questions:

  1. We'll have the design intent with the multiple signatures form included. It is part of our MVP. The experimental design request addresses the multiple signature process, ensuring it passes VA.gov recommendations and regulations. We thought the IA issues would be addressed in that request, so we separated it out from Medallions form. On a smaller note, we filed this ticket actively working on further updates with multiple signatures. If you have further thoughts that would be more helpful for you all in reviewing, let us know.
  2. Here's the most recent process flow diagram. It aligns for the most part with Form 1330M. The cemetery official clicks a form link in a VA Notify email, signs in, and reviews, signs on the fields submitted in the 1330M form in a read-only format.

Medallions Process Diagram V5.pdf

In terms of non-veteran audiences, our developer say authentication is already happening on the front end using ID.me or possibly other 3rd party authentications. In terms of where it might live on the site, it's the vets-api.

kristinoletmuskat commented 2 months ago

@barron-charles thank you! This is a super helpful diagram -- is there a live version of this somewhere where we could add comments?

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

@kristinoletmuskat there is! It's on the Medallions Figma file. It's the exact location where it begins the process for reference.

aprocik1 commented 2 months ago

@barron-charles, Kristin and I also drafted an updated process flow diagram. I just pasted it into your Figma file. Two distinctions between your diagram and ours:

  1. We start the flow by asking for the applicant's name before asking for their relationship to the Veteran. This is consistent with other online forms on VA.gov. We recommend you make this change in your diagram and designs.
  2. We place the remains question in the "burial information" section. This helps the content flow more naturally in the "applicant information" section. We recommend you make this change in your diagram and designs.

Let me know if you have any questions!

P.S. We still have questions about where the cemetery information screens should appear and who needs to see them in our diagram. Feedback welcome!

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

@aprocik1 @kristinoletmuskat Thank you! We're going to be continuing the recommendations you all sent over today and early this week. We also have the design intent feedback we're also factoring into the designs. Will get you further comments and analysis soon with these questions and the questions in the document.

aprocik1 commented 2 months ago

Update: Carly and Charlie are updating their Figma file to align with CAIA's content and user flow recommendations. They're also working with SMEs to get answers to some of our outstanding questions.

CAIA will re-review the Figma file after all the updates have been finalized. The Figma file will act as our content source of truth moving forward, and we'll provide content recommendations via comments.

Note: My content colleagues and I are attending an in person conference next week. We'll be slow to respond and mostly offline. Let me know if you anticipate any urgent content needs. We'll try our best to provide support on emergency and launch-related projects.

aprocik1 commented 2 months ago

@carly-yamrus and @barron-charles, I added my content recommendations for the secondary signer form flow in our content source of truth document (pages 27-33). I wanted to get you these recommendations now, since I know you're currently updating your Figma file. My recommendations may change based on IA thinking and SME requirements.

I haven't drafted the VA Notify emails yet, but I hope to get to them soon.

carly-yamrus commented 2 months ago

@aprocik1 Perfect ! I will get started on that now.

aprocik1 commented 2 months ago

@carly-yamrus and @barron-charles, I added my content recommendations for the VA Notify emails to our content source of truth document (pages 27-31 and pages 40-43). My recommendations may change based on my comment in the Figma file.

After you update your designs to match our content and form flow recommendations, we can start using the Figma file as the content source of truth. Moving forward, I'll leave any edits to content in comments. Thanks!

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

Thank you @aprocik1 for all the great help, time, and efforts on this! Look forward to getting more into the recommendations.

aprocik1 commented 2 months ago

@carly-yamrus and @barron-charles, I added my content recommendation for the final VA Notify email to the recipient in our content source of truth document (pages 44-45). I recommend sending this email at the end of the process--after the cemetery official has signed the application and after VA has approved it.

This should be the final additional to the document. After your designs are updated to match the document, we'll use the Figma file as the content source of truth moving forward.

barron-charles commented 2 months ago

@kristinoletmuskat @aprocik1 we've been busy working through the content recommendations provided, and the believe the designs are in a good place to start assessing the multiple signatures portion. Here's the experimental design request link.

In the Medallions Figma file, there are notes where we have further questions. I will update the process diagram to reflect the most recent changes implemented. If you have any further questions or think it would be helpful to meet to discuss further, just let us know.

Thanks again for all the help!