Sending Labor Complaints to the Right Place: Winter Update from IL*DS ❄️❄️
Read on for an winter update from the Illinois Digital Service.
Here’s what we’ve been up to at the start of this year:
onboarding three early-career civic technology apprentices
building an Illinois Digital Service website
partnering with the Illinois Department of Labor to improve the online “front door” for labor complaints
Read on for more!
Working with the Illinois Department of Labor
Illinois Digital Service has been working with the Illinois Department of Labor to improve the online “front door” for Illinoisans who need to file a labor complaint.
Who it’s for
This work focused on supporting workers whose labor rights were violated because their employer did not follow workplace laws—for example, by stealing wages, not paying minimum wage, or denying meal breaks.
Why
The Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) is dedicated to enforcing state labor laws, helping employers comply with the law, and increasing public awareness of workplace protections.
IDOL wanted to improve their online presence and make their website friendlier to use. They started with a specific goal: Make it easier for workers to find and submit the right complaint form.
The Illinois Department of Labor noticed that workers experiencing labor rights violations were sometimes filling out the incorrect form on their website, adding extra time and confusion to filing a complaint. They predicted that helping people find the right forms could also save staff time and effort spent processing complaints.
We partnered with the Illinois Department of Labor to work on an improved online “front door” web page that workers use to file complaints.
What we did
Started small to build momentum: Rather than trying to redesign the entire IDOL website up front, we narrowed in on the file a complaint page as our initial scope.
Tested with real people: We spoke with worker advocates who support people facing labor issues and help them file complaints. We walked advocates through the existing web page, gathering their feedback on issues that can cause workers to struggle.
Worked with those close to the problem: We engaged Illinois Department of Labor staff to ensure the new webpage met their needs and was easy to implement. We talked to staff responsible for sorting and responding to complaints: learning when and why workers submitted the wrong complaint forms, and how staff help workers understand their rights and navigate the process.
Delivered value early and often: We also collaborated closely with the staff who manage the IDOL website. We used their existing tools and aimed to write as little custom code as possible in order to deliver value quickly.
Results
In 76 business days, we:
Conducted user research with three workers rights advocates and three IDOL staff.
Developed new content and visual designs based on what we learned.
Finalized the content with IDOL leadership to make sure it met their needs.
Worked with IDOL to publish the new page using existing web management tools.
Designing Worker-Centered Content
Understanding workers’ lived experience helped us write new plain-language content.
For example:
We heard that it’s important to set the right expectations up front, and set workers up for success by making sure they have documentation to support their complaint.
So we wrote content to help workers understand the steps of the process, and how to prepare and submit a complaint:
We heard that heavy legal jargon and many form options can be overwhelming and hard to navigate.
So we re-organized content to focus on the labor issues that workers may experience:
We heard that the step of creating an online account can be a barrier—especially when trust in government is low, and when the meaning and purpose of the account isn’t clear.
So we wrote content to explain and give context about Illinois ID accounts:
Never done!
We embraced imperfection in order to deliver value early.
In the visual designs we created, several of the visual features required custom CSS code to implement.
We worked with our IDOL partners and decided that these visual improvements were “nice to haves”, but not “must haves.” We wanted to incorporate them into the new page, but we didn’t want to wait on getting more worker-friendly content out the door.
It’s normal to want a perfect web page to serve your users, but the truth is that websites and web content are never perfect—and they are never fully done. They are constantly evolving as the needs and expectations of users change. The key is to keep listening to your users, and keep delivering improvements based on what you learn!
Acknowledgements
Contributors:
Kaleigh Simmons, research and content design
Emily Herrick, research and UX design
Alex Soble, product and project management
Many thanks to our terrific partner team at the Illinois Department of Labor.
Get Involved
In our next update, we’ll share more on how to get involved with Illinois Digital Service, including a revamped sign-up form for civic technologists.
About IL*DS
Illinois Digital Service is a nonprofit technology partner. We help state and local government leaders wrestle with the hard work of reimagining public services.
Illinois Digital Service is a fiscally sponsored project of the Digital Harbor Foundation.
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