West Essex Social Care
Understanding the work before defining a new system
I explored how a future social care case-management system could support service managers and frontline workers. Through interviews, a review of existing products and work with data analysts, I identified administrative pain points and system constraints. The output was a research report and workflow hypotheses for both roles.
Role: UX research and product strategy
Scope: Exploratory research · Public sector · Complex systems
Understanding everyday work
I interviewed service managers and frontline social care workers across several councils, primarily in West Essex. COVID restrictions prevented on-site observation, so I used in-depth remote interviews to understand their workflows.
The research covered two perspectives: how frontline workers prepared for visits and recorded cases, and how managers oversaw the service and accessed the information they needed.
I also reviewed existing case-management products to understand common approaches, legacy constraints and security requirements.
Connecting user needs with system constraints
A recurring problem was the administrative work involved in recording cases and completing forms. The research suggested two opportunities for a future system:
- Bring relevant information about the person and their case into a clear overview before a visit.
- Pre-fill forms with information already held by the council to reduce repeated data entry.
Alongside this, I worked with data analysts to understand what information could move into a replacement system, what needed to remain accessible and what had to be reported to central government.
These constraints mattered to the proposed workflows: a simpler experience still needed to support existing records and reporting obligations.
Outcome
I delivered a research report and workflow hypotheses for service managers and frontline workers, outlining directions for a future case-management system.
The hypotheses remained proposals for further design and testing. My involvement ended at the research stage, before interface design or development.