Intake Facility Digital Transformation
The New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) serves the largest homeless population in the country. An outdated, inefficient system of paper forms and manual data entry was inadequate for both DHS employees and people experiencing homelessness alike.
Through countless interviews and comprehensive real user testing, our team at IBM was able to introduce kiosks at intake facilities, paired with smart staff management dashboards that allow DHS staff to efficiently match clients with the services they need. These tools help the city fulfill their goal of homeless prevention while providing shelter as a safety net for those who need it.
Additional Experiences
Defining the user interface for the Welcome Kiosks and Staff Dashboards inspired an entire UI toolkit for designers and developers to use when developing other municipal experiences. This visual identity helps employees and the public recognize they’re using a DHS tool, with the design language being consistent across them all.