DCHS Insights CX Human-Centered Design @ DCHS PROTOTYPE no real data
The same total, cut differently

The same week, cut three ways

Volume split by channel, by program, and by movement in rank — the closest neighbour to the headline numbers, and the group where it is easiest to publish three slides that say one thing.

What this is

Everything here is the same total as the previous group, divided. That is both the appeal and the risk: a breakdown answers “where did it come from?”, which is the first question anyone asks about a headline number — but three consecutive slides dividing the same total is three slides a reader can skip.

The prototype currently carries five of these. That is almost certainly too many, and choosing between them is a genuine editorial decision rather than a technical one.

What could go in it

Options to react to, not a recommendation. Strike, keep, and add — reacting to a concrete list is far more productive than starting from a blank page.

By channel

Phone, in person, online — and within phone, what happened to the call. This is the cut that tells staff where the pressure actually landed, and the one most likely to change how a team schedules its week.

By program, sized to scale

A treemap where the area does the talking. It is the only slide that shows the whole department at once, and it makes relative size obvious in a way a ranked list never does.

By movement, not by size

Who overtook whom over five weeks. More interesting than a static ranking and much easier to over-read: a program can climb three places on twelve extra visits.

By where people came from

Referral source, first visit versus returning, walk-in versus appointment. Not currently in the deck. This is arguably the most actionable cut of all and the least likely to be readily available.

Digital next to the doors

Portal, online booking and the eligibility checker shown in the same breath as foot traffic, so the web is not treated as somebody else's report.

Questions to settle

These are the decisions that have to be made before anything here can run every Monday. Most of them are editorial rather than technical.

Which single cut earns its place every week?

  • If only one breakdown ran every Monday, which one would change what somebody does?
  • Could the others rotate — channel one week, programs the next?
  • Is a breakdown that never surprises anyone worth a slide?

Program, center, or service?

  • Staff recognise one of these; the data is probably organised around another.
  • Where the two disagree, which one do we publish under?
  • A client does not experience a program — they experience a desk. Does that matter here?

Rank or volume?

  • Rank hides scale and invites over-reading. Volume is honest and less interesting.
  • Do we publish the underlying counts alongside the ranking?
  • Is there a minimum change below which we simply do not report movement?

Do small programs get named?

  • A treemap with a small box labelled “Other” hides somebody's whole week of work.
  • Is there a floor below which we aggregate — and does being aggregated read as being unimportant?
  • The alternative is a chart with fourteen unreadable boxes. Both options cost something.

Does the split include the people we lost?

  • Abandoned calls, walk-outs, applications started online and never finished.
  • A denominator of only the people we served is a flattering denominator.
  • Is there an appetite to publish the ones that got away, and what happens when that number is bad?

What it would take

What each slide needs, and the question that has to be answered before we know whether we can produce it. The systems are named loosely on purpose — which system holds what is exactly what the working group should nail down.

Metric Where it would come from What we would need The open question
Calls by outcome The phone platform Weekly counts of answered, voicemail and transferred, on a definition that does not change Is a transfer counted once, or in both the sending and receiving queue? Do internal calls land in the same total? Who can answer this: ______________
Visits by program The queue system, plus whatever records service delivery A weekly count per program against a single shared program list Do the queue's service categories and the case system's program names agree — and which is authoritative when they do not? Who can answer this: ______________
Rank movement Derived from the per-program series Five consecutive weeks of the same series Nothing new, if the per-program series is stable. This is the cheapest slide in the deck to produce and the easiest to make misleading. Who can answer this: ______________
Channel mix over twelve months Queue system, phone platform and web analytics together Three series on a common weekly calendar and comparable definitions Can a visit, a call and a session honestly sit on the same axis? If a call and a visit are the same event by two routes, the total double-counts. Who can answer this: ______________
Digital traffic Web analytics, plus whatever runs the portal, booking and eligibility tools Weekly sessions and completions per tool Are those tools instrumented consistently, and does “completion” mean the same thing across all three? Who can answer this: ______________

DCHS Insights CX

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