Government of Alberta Land Titles
OVERVIEW
Challenge
The Government of Alberta Land Titles Office (LTO) is the official registry for land and real property in Alberta. It tracks ownership, boundaries, surveys, liens, encumbrances and more, operating under the Torrens system. The vast majority of users still submit to Land Titles via physical paper submissions, which results in an immense backlog of submissions for examiners to process.
My team is tasked with creating a new digital submission solution to Land Titles, addressing as best we can the barriers of why only 4% of external users are utilizing the digital solution in an effort to increase conversion, and to increase the quality of these submissions so internal users can process submissions more efficiently.
Delivered
A new external-facing submission solution Proof Of Concept (POC) with accompanying Service Design strategic assets that address and guide the continuing development of the POC as it evolves into the actual solution.
Initial Discovery
There was a lot of good information to be studied when I joined the team - initial contextual inquiries with end users were done months prior to pinpoint the initial demographics for the POC to be designed for (the Law community of Alberta, Lawyers and Paralegals). Our Product Owner was also a former member of the internal Land Titles examination team, so I was able to use her as my initial Subject Matter Expert. With all this information, I could discern the current state and start laying it out so that we could really see where and what the problems were, and start guiding us on making the best hypotheses on where to make our changes and what they should be.
Laying it all out and initializing the team
I mapped out the current process and workshopped with the team to find all the painpoints and opportunities first, then from there I was able to make and iterate with the team our grand Service Design Blueprint.
The Service Design Blueprint was our first valuable tool:
Understanding what we needed to build
Design and Development were able to see the big picture (literally!) and all agree on where we were headed.
Communicating with other teams
Other teams had segments of functionality that touched on the larger task we were spearheading, so it was extremely useful to have this schematic to show them where all the pieces fit together.
Knowing where to dig deeper
Best part; you don’t know what you don’t know, so having a tool to assist with sussing out where more research was needed (whether service design, technical or policy-based), was the most important part of this tool.
Zeroing in on documents
Another part of my duties was figuring out the requirements of the document type around which we created our solution spike. In essence, this meant taking one single part of the Service Design Blueprint and blowing it out into a flow that showed how we were adapting the previously paper-based submission into our digital solution, leveraging all the good things digital can bring, such as error prevention and as much automation as possible to make it easier for both the external user and internal users.
This was a critical step, as our team was then able to create user stories to initialize Dev and Design. They just needed to deeply understand all the requirements first, and this format proved perfect for them.
Example of one of the flows created, for Transfer of Land. Other flows for additional document types, including Mortgage and Removal of Deceased Tenant were also created.
Research & Workshops
While Design and Dev were busy creating, I was also busy conducting another part of my role, Research and Workshopping. In the course of this project, this included:
Survey: General usage of the current digital system among External users (Law Community of Alberta)
Survey: Third Party Software usage among External users (Law Community of Alberta)
1:1 Interviews: Registration Request needs with Internal Examiners
1:1 Interviews: Registration Request needs among External users (Law Community of Alberta)
1:1 Interviews: Adding a transferee in the current system among Internal Examiners
Workshop: KPIs and Success Criteria
Workshop: Digital Signatures
Proof of Concept Usability Evaluation
When the POC was ready, I created, ran and synthesized the report for a usability test with participants from the Alberta Law Community. Here are some select findings from the evaluation:
Experience Principles
These principles are a listing of boiler-plate, non-negotiables to keep in the back of my mind as I go about informing Design and Development. They do change with each project, depending on need, but mostly, they tend to stay the same within the realm of providing the best digital services. For the Land Titles submission solution, I notice that a sweet spot is with these, and so these are the ones I used for this project:
Relevant & adaptive - go for the best experience, but keep in mind what is there today, so scaling back to an MVP isn’t a headache
Streamlined - provide structure to complex ideas, restrict choices to aid decision-making
Conversational - respond to user input & actions, provide immediate feedback, error messages are clear and located where it’s easy to figure out the necessary fix
Respectful - understand the current processes of the Legal Community and support it; reduce any repetitive actions to help conversion