To fully understand the Safe At Home (SAH) program's complex ecosystem, I conducted in-depth research to identify and define key user groups. These groups, or 'personas,' represent the various individuals who interact with the program and its systems. Through careful observation, interviews, and analysis, I identified five primary personas, each with distinct needs, motivations, and challenges:

• The Program Worker: This persona represents the administrative staff within the Secretary of State's office who manage the SAH program. They handle applications, maintain records, and ensure the program's smooth operation. Their needs center around efficient data management, accurate record-keeping, and streamlined workflows.

• The Mail Worker: This persona encompasses the individuals who physically process and forward mail for SAH participants. Their work demands meticulous attention to detail, adherence to strict confidentiality protocols, and efficient handling of a high volume of mail.

• The SAH Participant: This is the core user group, individuals who have enrolled in the program due to safety concerns. Their primary need is to maintain their anonymity and receive their mail securely and reliably. Their experience with the program directly impacts their sense of safety and well-being.

• The Law Enforcement Officer: This persona represents officers who may need to interact with the SAH program in specific situations, such as investigations. Their needs involve accessing information in a secure and authorized manner while respecting the participant's confidentiality.

• The Application Assistant: This persona represents the people who help SAH participants fill out the application, or answer questions pertaining to the application process. This could be social workers, or other support staff. Their needs are to have access to the most up to date information, and to have a simplified application process.

By thoroughly understanding these personas, I was able to gain valuable insights into the program's strengths and weaknesses, identify potential pain points, and develop solutions that address the specific needs of each user group. This human-centered approach was crucial for creating a more effective and user-friendly SAH program.

I fostered strong, collaborative relationships across the organization by leading impactful Design Thinking workshops and design sprints. These sessions served as a catalyst for innovation and problem-solving, enabling me to build trust and rapport with business partners throughout the enterprise, even those outside my direct reporting structure.

Specifically, these workshops and sprints allowed me to:

• Democratize Innovation: By introducing Design Thinking methodologies, I empowered individuals from diverse departments to actively participate in the creative process, fostering a shared sense of ownership and collaboration.

• Establish Common Ground: These collaborative sessions provided a neutral and structured environment for cross-functional teams to align on goals, understand user needs, and generate innovative solutions.

• Build Trust Through Shared Experiences: By working alongside business partners in these interactive sessions, I demonstrated my commitment to their success and built trust through shared problem-solving and creative exploration.

• Influence Without Authority: By demonstrating the value of user-centered design and collaborative problem-solving, I was able to influence decision-making and drive positive change, even among partners without direct reporting relationships.

• Drive User-Centered Solutions: Design Sprints are meant to rapidly create solutions that are focused on the user. By teaching these methods, I was able to spread the idea of user-centered design throughout the Safe at Home organization.

• Break Down Silos: These workshops and sprints facilitated cross-departmental communication and collaboration, breaking down silos and fostering a more integrated and cohesive organizational culture.

Through these efforts, I established myself as a trusted advisor and facilitator, effectively influencing business partners and driving collaborative innovation across the organization.

In our technical implementation, we sought a lightweight and dependable front-end framework, and Bootstrap 4 proved to be the ideal tech stack, serving our needs. The sketches above illustrate the design system and component library we developed based on this front-end platform.

A significant challenge we addressed in the MotherBear application was ensuring voting access for Safe At Home participants. Since their public address is concealed from all agencies and government entities, traditional voting methods are impossible. MotherBear resolves this by managing the voting process directly within the application, integrating it seamlessly with other features like participant management and mail forwarding.