The Future of Incident Reporting
From ‘out in the field’ to the form field: Utilizing data and preferred work styles for improved interactions and experiences with forms in Record Management Systems (RMS) used by critical response officers.
Utilizing data and preferred work styles for improved interactions and experiences with forms used by critical response officers.
Forms and data tables play a critical role in law enforcement, aiding officers, detectives, and the courts in recording, tracking, investigating, and processing crimes.
A data-driven design approach is essential for forms, harnessing the available data to assist users in efficiently processing and accurately filing the required information.
Review-Centered Report Form utilizes this, effectively changing the officer from a data enterer into a data reviewer. This not only speeds up the time to complete an incident report, reduces officers cognitive exhaustion and burnout, reduces risks of errors, but also allows them to engage in data collection methods that they prefer in their process.
CHALLENGE:
Forms currently support databases,
not people.
Forms were typically designed to prioritize data compilation and formatting rather than user experience. This often places the burden on users, particularly police officers, to conform to rigid structures of data tables, which are not user-friendly. Police officers encounter the most burdens from filing forms and therefore resented paperwork. Further, their quality in filling out forms impact all stakeholders and have a high degree of risk for stakeholders, including themselves.
“While incident reporting is vital to police work and helps move criminal proceedings forward, officers spend a significant portion of their workdays on documentation. According to a recent survey, officers say they spend three hours or more per shift on paperwork. These heavy documentation demands can create ripple effects across agencies, from missed deadlines and inaccurate or incomplete reports to officer burnout—or worse, impact officer safety with heads-down reporting in the patrol vehicle.”
OBJECTIVE:
Researching and designing the future of forms for critical response officers.
Tasked to research and design for the central question:
What is the future of forms for critical response officers?
To achieve this, I conducted the following:
Analogous and Trend Research.
Primary Research (Expert Interviews).
Future Forecasting.
Design and Prototyping.
RESEARCH:
Secondary, Analogous and Trend Research
Trends in form design was researched across industry applications and behavioral and UX design reports.
Lots of behavioral design research has been conducted on forms, and how to design them for efficient outcomes in meeting their defined objectives. Similarly, in the field of UX, research has also been conducted in how to keep users engaged during forms and reduce cognitive load and effort, as well as trends identified in form UX design. Similarly, I looked to other industries and roles that require a high degree of reporting and also have a high degree of associated risk, like nursing, to see how reporting products in those fields are currently being designed.
This secondary research would later inform design principles.
Understanding the role technology plays in the future of forms as well as the future of policing, informed the responsible scoping for the project regarding the engagement of anticipated tech.
As technology advances, new types of data may be needed and involved with form filing. It is important to understand the impact of these technologies on both individual roles and the system of related stakeholders. For example, the use of facial recognition or predictive policing by public safety officers aims to reduce criminal activity and create safer communities but also poses significant risks, such as violation of personal rights and privacy, data vulnerabilities, and false harassment or arrest of innocent citizens. Often, these technologies are trained on biased databases.
Given that my research and design inputs would contribute to the development of digital technology, it was important to understand the critical implications that could arise.
Thus, I decided to stay away from recommending the use and engagement of facial recognition, predictive policing, and other technologies in the envisioning of a future state of forms. I tried to lead this research project with the values of developing an equitable, transparent, efficient, accurate and accountable system. Based on this secondary research and critical studies, I recommended focusing on technologies already widely adopted and in use by safety officials and officers, such as body-worn cameras, in-vehicle cameras, radio communications, mobile data terminals (MDT), and related software usage data.
“In tracing the connections between electronic monitoring, predictive policing, facial recognition, and more, Malkia Cyril explains that ‘technology is being used to expand the carceral state, allowing policing and imprisonment to stand in for civil society while seemingly neutral algorithms justify that shift … Digital technologies extend the reach of this structural surveillance, make it persistent for some and nearly invisible to those with enough power to escape its gaze.’”
Primary Research - Expert Interviews
Expert interviews highlighted the burdens officers faced from forms and their impact on downstream stakeholders.
Officers encountered the most burdens from forms, and their quality affected stakeholders downstream. Interviewing experts with experience in various roles helped us understand the civic workflow, responsibilities, relationships to forms and data, and the consequences and pains they experienced.
Scoping the project for a specific user type, patrol officers were identified as the primary focus. They were the first to interact with forms and relevant data, spending the most time with forms, and their data quality had direct implications for downstream stakeholders.
Patrol officer pain points included:
Duplicate Records: Finding, verifying and merging existing records and entries.
Redundant Data Documentation: Collection and entry of data through various mediums and communication channels.
Organizing Information: Reshuffling recorded data into the forms order hierarchy.
Code switching: Translating data into the forms accepted values.
Error Revision: Revising unaccepted form values or formats.
It made sense to begin improving the experience of forms for patrol officers specifically, with a focus on reducing time spent and increasing accuracy.
USER INSIGHTS:
Officers need forms to support their preferred operating styles for data collection and entry, as there is no universally preferred process or method.
SMEs had diverse opinions on the best ways to collect data for accurate and efficient entry. Some preferred using MDTs (mobile laptops), others relied on dispatchers over car and body radios, while some insisted on jotting down incident details in notebooks for later reflection.
Inspired by Kat Holmes' “Mismatch,” I took a spectrum approach to persona building. This approach considered various persona profiles and their preferred learning and work styles, reflecting tensions and contradictions among SMEs. This allowed us to strategize and design for a plurality of potential users.
As technology advances, officers prefer to transition from data collectors to data reviewers.
As data automation becomes more prevalent, it poses the opportunity to alleviate officers' pain points related to redundant data documentation and supporting their preferences for communication channels, devices, and work styles.
With this shift, officers' roles can evolve from manual data collection and entry to data reviewers. They can verify auto-filled and generated forms by cross-referencing various data sources like video footage, audio recordings, photos, search history, and tracking data.
DESIGN:
Prototyping involved multiple stages, including user task flows, sketches, and wireframes, ensuring research insights were implemented in the final solution. And we applied and engaged with the company's defined style guide and library, using Figma to develop the prototype below.
This design introduces three essential features:
Streamlining navigation between flagged fields to enhance review efficiency.
Supporting officers in recalling, referencing, and reviewing fields by cross-referencing data from the evidence panel.
Displaying only pertinent information for officers to expedite form submission.
Review-Centered Report Form uses automated data collection and entry to fit an officers work preferences and needs, ultimately reducing time spent and risk of errors.
Instead of relying on auto-populated fields, our design system links to evidence collected at the time the officer was engaging with the incident. Whether it was data collected from radio dispatch, body-worn cameras, in-vehicle cameras, MDTs, or mobile documentation, Review-Centered reporting centralizes these artifacts in a right-handed evidence column. This allows the officer to view the suggested data and see the data as proof before accepting it, triggering their recollection of the event and acting as a reviewer of the data.
This design reduces the time spent on completing the form, as officers no longer had to cross-examine notes and data across several platforms. It also allows them to engage in their preferred methods of data collection when out in the field.
Company: Large critical data communications and telecommunications equipment provider
May. 2021 - Aug. 2021
Co-partner: Ben Olsen, UX Design Intern