Designing for the
worst day
of someone’s life.
A federal disaster declaration. Caseworkers toggling between six disconnected tools while displaced families waited. I led design and delivery of the platform that replaced all six — one unified record, six months, deployed nationally. 1,689 cases in the first two weeks it was live.
When a family loses everything,
a caseworker opens a screen.
A federal disaster declaration. Mass displacement, surge volunteers, federal audit pressure, six tools that didn’t talk to each other. Every process bottleneck was a system failure. Time navigating screens was time not spent with the family in front of you.
Designed for field. Built for surge.
The platform had to perform under the worst conditions — slow networks, untrained volunteers, federal oversight — and absorb 10× surge without a single workflow change. Every design decision was tested against that constraint.
Complexity lives in the system, not the interface. Every screen was tested under surge conditions before it shipped.
Six legacy systems became one case, one view, one source of truth. Every role sees the same record.
FEMA documentation isn’t a post-step. It’s embedded in every transaction.
10× normal volume from day one. No degradation. No retraining required.
Three fields,
not eight.
A first-time volunteer. No training. A federal disaster declaration already active. The program type pre-selects itself — progressive disclosure hides everything else until it’s needed. The stakes were real: choosing Grey Sky over Blue Sky locked in different hardship codes, assistance caps, and eligibility tiers. One wrong tap at intake cascaded wrong rules across the entire case.
Seeing the
whole family.
Before this, a household lived across three separate legacy systems. Caseworkers were reconstructing family structure from memory mid-conversation. The right panel puts every household member, relationship, language, and contact preference in the same view as the case — no screen switch. Caseworkers stopped asking questions they should already know the answers to.
| Service | Type | Case note | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial/supplemental assistance | CAC | Issued $720, Lodging | Doug Garcia |
| Health services | Internal referral | Health services | Rudy Jenkinson |
| Service | Amount | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAC – Lodging | $720 | May 7 | Active |
| Health Referral | — | May 5 | Referred |
| Food & Nutrition | — | — | Pending |
Contact log as
the case log.
Language, contact method, every outreach attempt — all in context, on the same screen as the case. No more reconstructing contact history from memory or a separate tool. The outreach log tracks channel, timestamp, and staff member for every interaction.
| Need (from intake) | Service assigned | Status |
|---|---|---|
| URGENT Temporary housing | CAC – Lodging $720 | Active |
| URGENT Medical | Health referral | Referred |
| Food / nutrition | Pending referral | Pending |
| Clothing / personal items | Not yet assigned | Open |
Queue, not
case-by-case.
Before, supervisors opened every case to find priority. The queue changes the model: urgency bars encode wait time visually. No scanning. Supervisors move to the highest-priority case automatically and can batch-approve low-risk cases in a single action.
Ledger as
audit record.
FEMA documentation had been assembled in spreadsheets after each transaction — a manual step that introduced error and delay at audit time. Here, every disbursement self-documents: method, amount, authorization chain, and audit reference are captured at the point of transaction. Fraud alerts surface in the notification panel before payment is released.
| Date | Service | Method | Recipient | Amount | Auth'd By | FEMA Doc | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 31, 2020 | Financial asst — Lodging | CAC #4892 | Noel Ruggiero | $720.00 | S. Kim (Sup.) | 4487-L | Delivered |
| Feb 03, 2020 | Transportation asst | CAC #4921 | Noel Ruggiero | $150.00 | S. Kim (Sup.) | 4487-T | Delivered |
| Feb 10, 2020 | Home repair — Materials | On Hold | Noel Ruggiero | $340.00 | S. Kim (Sup.) | — | On Hold |
Everything
in one view.
Cases, staff, funds, compliance — all in one view, without switching tools. 1,689 cases across three active events, 23 caseworkers, $847K disbursed, 98.7% FEMA compliance. Modules drive assistance configuration. The Suggested Action column converts a read-only dashboard into a decision surface. Directors act rather than export and analyze.
| Case # | Case Type | Status | Date Opened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01728166 | Complex Assistance | Open | Apr 16, 2024 |
| 01728167 | Complex Assistance | Open | Apr 16, 2024 |
| 01728168 | Basic Assistance | Closed | Apr 17, 2024 |
| 01728169 | Complex Assistance | Open | Apr 17, 2024 |
| 01728170 | Immediate Assistance | Closed | Mar 15, 2024 |
| 01728171 | Basic Assistance | In Review | Apr 18, 2024 |
| 01728172 | Complex Assistance | Open | Apr 19, 2024 |
| 01728173 | Immediate Assistance | Closed | Mar 20, 2024 |
| Event | Case # | Case Status | Damage Assess. | Docs | Match | Contact Name | Zip |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hurricane Diana | 01728166 | Open | Destroyed | ✓ | ✓ | Sydney Francis | 77002 |
| Hurricane Diana | 01728167 | Open | Major Damage | ✓ | ✗ | Martina Levine | 77003 |
| Hurricane Diana | 01728168 | Closed | Destroyed | ✗ | ✗ | Eryn Joyner | 77004 |
| LA Flooding | 01728169 | Closed | Minor Damage | ✓ | ✓ | Cally Cortes | 90012 |
| LA Flooding | 01728170 | Open | Destroyed | ✓ | ✗ | Stephanie Jones | 90014 |
| TX Home Fires | 01728171 | Closed | Destroyed | ✓ | ✓ | Roxie Bradley | 78201 |
| Case # | Event | Case Type | Status | Disbursed | Suggested Action | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01728166 | Hurricane Diana | Complex | Closed | Receipt Confirmed | Close Account | Sydney Francis |
| 01728167 | Hurricane Diana | Complex | Open | Unclaimed EFT | Send Reminder | Martina Levine |
| 01728168 | Hurricane Diana | Basic | Closed | Receipt Confirmed | Close Account | Eryn Joyner |
| 01728169 | LA Flooding | Complex | Closed | — | — | Cally Cortes |
| 01728170 | LA Flooding | Basic | Open | Failed KBA | Follow-up Client | Stephanie Jones |
| 01728171 | TX Home Fires | Complex | Closed | Delivery Complete | — | Roxie Bradley |
| 01728172 | TX Home Fires | Basic | Open | Unclaimed EFT | Send Reminder | Balraj Dale |
Same problems.
Different architecture.
Surge load. Eligibility complexity. Multi-role coordination. Federal compliance — and the three gaps the original couldn’t close: no client portal, cascading call center errors, a recovery plan that ended at disbursement. These are exactly the problems agentic systems are built for. Here’s how I’d redesign it today.
1,646 auto-resolved
awaiting human gate
supervisor notified
shift change ready
Eligibility Decision
| What the agent handles | What stays human |
|---|---|
| FEMA feed matching · address pre-staging | Eligibility approval for disbursement |
| Case context briefs · shift handoffs | Any family-critical decision |
| Surge forecasting · queue routing | Override of flagged anomalies |
| Duplicate detection · fraud flagging | Federal audit sign-off |