Debt Management Portal on VA.gov
Case study | January 2021
Veterans can incur a debt with VA, be unaware of it for extended periods of time, and feel lost while trying to resolve it.
My Role
Co-designer through end-to-end process: discovery research, design, usability research, support through launch.
The team
Leah Keeler, Product Manager
Rebecca Walsh, UX Designer/Researcher
Brad Conley, Frontend Engineer
Mahariel Rosario, Frontend Engineer
Cameron Testerman, Backend Engineer
Project background and goals
Veterans can receive debt from VA for various reasons including: dropping a class while using education benefits and continuing to receive dependent compensation for an ex-spouse. There’s a significant problem where Veterans are incurring these debts, but are unaware of these debts for months or years. This could be because Veterans are a very migratory population and many may not be receiving notification letters at their most recent home address. Therefore, Congress passed legislation requiring VA to provide access to these notification letters electronically.
The initial requirement was to provide these letters on VA.gov; however, we wanted to improve the experience by making as much information within the letters available as possible so Veterans weren’t forced to download and read them to learn more about their debt.
Our goals
Uncover which debt types we have access to within the database containing the notification letters, and discover if any taxonomy exists to pull information from those letters
Provide access to available letters online, while displaying as much information about those letters as possible so Veterans won’t need to download them
Direct Veterans towards information about how they might resolve their debt
Notify Veterans about updates concerning their debt so they don’t need to rely on “snail mail” correspondence
Affinity diagrams were used to find common themes across stakeholders
Discovering how Veterans currently navigate their debt
We wanted to launch this product as quickly as possible so Veterans can begin accessing vital information about their debt, so we fast tracked discovery research by interviewing key stakeholders and contact center representatives that work with Veterans.
Our insights
There are different teams within the VA’s Debt Management Center that specialize in various debt types and follow different processes
Veterans often don’t understand where their debts are coming from due to missing letters or delays in debts being issued; oftentimes, letters are returned due to ‘bad addresses’
The debt notification letters are extremely intimidating and confusing to Veterans so they often go unread
Multiple letters need to be referenced in order to understand where the debt is coming from; debt counselors need to dig for information in multiple systems when assisting Veterans
Most of the debt resolution pathways require Veterans to complete VA Form 5655, which collects a monthly snapshot of the Veteran’s financial situation
Personas were created after the synthesis process to promote discussion during team-wide ideation sessions.
Team-wide ideation workshop sessions
I hosted multiple workshop sessions with the product manager, product owner, and engineering teammates in order to gain team-wide investment into the problem we were solving. As a team, we went through user stories and personas before breaking out into 8 minute sketching sessions to lay out ideas for how we might display information from the letters. Afterwards, we discussed everyone’s ideas and ranked them on an ‘impact and effort matrix’ to direct us towards features to include in the MVP.
Each debt is displayed in a card highlighting what Veteran’s need to know at first glance: amount owed, current status, and next steps. If they want to learn more or download the letters, they have the ability to view each debt’s details.
The debt’s detail view alerts the Veteran of any important information or needed action related to the debt. Since notification letters are often lost, we included a timeline of when each letter was sent out and what each letter means to provide peace of mind.
We wanted the most vital information immediately displayed so Veterans don’t need to read the notification letters to learn about their debt. However, they’re still able to download individual letters in case they want to reference them or keep a hard copy for their personal records.
Next steps
Our stakeholders were extremely happy with the work we accomplished together, and we received additional funding to continue working on an expanded VA debt experience. My team is currently developing a digitized version of the Financial Status Report, which is a key component of the resolution process.
Additionally, we will be incorporating medical copayments into the debt portal as part of the VA debt experience. My hope is that in by providing access to these debts and their resolution options online, we can minimize the risk of these debts severely impacting Veterans’ lives.