The Future of Forms
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.
Forms currently support databases,
not people
Forms are not human-centered. They are centered around compiling and formatting data into a table. Users have to do the work to meet the needs of the form, which is structure for a data table over ease for the user.
Yet, forms and data tables are necessary for officers, detectives and the courts to be able to record, track, investigate and process crimes.
Forms need a data-driven design approach; utilizing the data present and available in efforts to help the user process and file the correct information.
Officers encounter the most burdens from forms, and their quality affects stakeholders downstream
A benefit to interviewing SMEs, was that they all had experience serving in many different roles throughout their career. This allowed us to understand the civic workflow and responsibilities of these positions, their relationships to forms and data, and the consequences and pains they experience.
Though forms affect all stakeholders, scoping the project for a user type was needed. Interview synthesis revealed that patrol officers were not only only the first to interact with the forms and relevant data, but they spend the most amount of time interacting forms. Further, the quality of the data submitted on their forms holds direct implications on 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.
Thus, it made sense to begin improving the experience of forms for patrol officers specifically, with a focus on reducing time spent and increasing accuracy.
Officers need forms to support their preferred operating styles when it comes to collecting and entering data
All the SME’s interviewed had opinions as how to best collect data to utilize for accurate and / or efficient data entry. For example, some would pull data on their MDT (mobile laptops), while others would rely on the dispatcher over their car and body radios. Some insisted on jotting the incident details down into a notebook for the ability to reflect while filing forms later on, and others would begin the incident form immediately after wrapping up an incident. Similar contradictions were found amongst the ideas they shared for how the design of the forms themselves could be improved. The contradictions occurred as people have different and preferred learning and work types.
Inspired by Kat Holmes, “Mismatch”, I decided to take a spectrum approach to persona building. Along with making several persona people, the personas and profiles considered their preferred learning and work styles, and usability considerations in situational, temporary and permanent contexts. They reflect the tensions and contradictions found between SMEs as to preferred working styles. Going beyond just a persona, this allowed us to see, strategize and design for the plurality of potential users.
A misfit job expectation: “I didn’t become a police officer to fill out forms”
Heard from all the interviewees we spoke to, was that officers really hate filling out forms. Part of this comes from a misfit between what they imagine / prefer about the role, and what it actually entails, which is a lot of tedious paperwork.
At best, this resentment towards form filling can cause them to submit hastily filled forms, which directly impacts downstream stakeholders (and themselves, as these forms usually get pushed back to them to correct). However, this resentment can also contribute towards burnout and turnover - which feeds into the high turnover rate and staffing crisis in police agencies felt across the country.
Many officers will use time while in the field, such as their patrol car, to dedicate time towards completing forms. At worst, this “heads-down reporting” can lead to the safety of themselves and of the community being jeopardized.
“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.”
Officers want to be data reviewers, not data collectors and enterers
As technology advances, data automation is becoming more prevalent. Trend reports are forecasting this, and we are already witnessing it in analogous fields and products.
This is great, as officers do not want to spend their time completing forms, and it alleviates their pain point of redundant data documentation, while supporting their individual preference for certain communication channels, devices and work styles.
Further, the aligns with the core competencies that this particular company provides.
With this, the role on an officer will evolve from one of manual data collection and entry, into one as a data reviewer; reviewing these auto-filled and generated forms, verifying the data captured through records of the video footage, audio recordings, photos, search history, tracking, etc.
SolutionReview-Centered Report Form
An automated data collection and entry to fit an officers work preferences and needs
To answer the question, “what is the future of forms for police officers?”, we asked in return, “how might we help forms fit an officers preferred workflow, while decreasing time spent and increasing accuracy?”
We found that automation for data-generated forms is the future. In turn the question to design for became, “how might we help officers review data collected from the scene?”
Our solution to this research was a UI redesign of Motorola’s SaaS Records Management System.
Key features this design serves to provide:
Allow officers to quickly navigate between flagged fields for efficient review and correction.
Assist officers in remembering, referencing and reviewing fields by cross-referencing the originating data source, captured in the evidence panel.
Show only what officers need to see to quickly submit forms.
Adoption of new technologies pose higher degrees impact regarding risk and reward for critical communications
When given the question, “what is the future of forms for officers?” - a natural reaction was to go study the future of technologies that may impact the workflows of officers, or of forms in general. However, it is very important given the context of the user-group to understand the potential reactions and consequences of implementing these new technologies into their related products. Take for example, the scenario of facial recognition used by public safety officers, or predictive policing. While both technologies aim to reduce criminal activity and make for safer communities, their use also pose highly adverse risks, such as violation and infringement of personal rights and privacy, data vulnerabilities and fraud, and false harassment, charge or arrest of innocent citizens. This is due to the nature that often these new technologies are trained and operate on existing biased databases.
“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.’”
Equity, transparency, and efficiency impact all stakeholders
Therefore, as a design researcher, I took a critical and sensitive approach to considering “the future of forms” from police officers. Though these technologies were studied, I decided to stay away from recommending their use in the envisioning of a future state of forms, and in the recommended list of design principles. I tried to lead this research project with the values of developing an equitable, transparent, efficient, accurate and accountable system.
Based on this research and perspective, I instead recommended that the design concept be scoped to only use the technologies widely adopted and in-use currently by safety officials and officers. Specifically, the “future of forms” would only be reliant upon the data recorded through body worn camera, in-vehicle cameras, radio communications, mobile data terminals (MDT, in-vehicle laptops) and cellular devices, and related software usage data (such as gps coordinates, computer-aided-dispatch software, and record-management-system software).
Therefore an incident report form could automatically be created, and data collected from these device interactions could be aggregated into a draft report form, which would later be efficiently reviewed by the reporting officer.
This would positively impact the police officers role as it would greatly reduce inefficient workflows, and allow them to be safer and more present while actively patrolling.
Additionally, given that currently so much time of an officers day is dedicated to paper work, specifically filling out forms, the reallocation of time could mean that officers could have more time to participate in trainings.
This would also presumably mean that the amount of time an officer is questioning, interacting, or arresting a civilian would be reduced, as the officer would not need to be reliant on redundant manual data collection. This could be beneficial for all parties as it could reduce building tensions, conflicts, and potential cases of harassment.
And of course, this would hopefully result in more accurate reporting, as officers can efficiently review the collected data, required to submit the report, as oppose to intentionally or unintentionally submitting a report with incorrect information, due to rushing or negligence. This would not only safe resources spent by downstream stakeholders, but avoid disastrous mistakes to both victims and offenders.
UX Research Intern
Company: Large critical data communications and telecommunications equipment provider
May. 2021 - Aug. 2021
Co-partner: Ben Olsen, UX Design Intern
A graduate internship with the design and research team creating SaaS products for mission-critical professionals. I lead all the research initiatives, while my co-part lead all design initiatives. Given that the research phase informed the design phase, the design process was highly collaborative. The project we lead was a future speculative task, asking us “what the future of forms is for mission critical professionals?”