Making child care enrollment simple enough to finish

Parents were giving up before they hit submit

Applying for child care should be one of the easiest things a city helps a family do. Instead, applicants were dropping off partway through because they couldn't tell how to submit, and what came next.

Many families didn't know where to start. Signing on required an email address, and some applicants had no email or no phone at all. The journey also touched four city agencies — ACS, DSS, HRA and DOE, and from the family's side it wasn't clear where one ended and the next began.

There was an emotional barrier too. Some parents felt embarrassed about needing help, and every confusing step gave them another reason to stop. So many never applied, and drop-off kept rising.

At the same time, the Mayor's office wanted every NYC agency's services available through one app — so this flow had to work as part of a much bigger, citywide experience.

From understanding the system to testing with families

1. 1
   Learned four agencies inside and out

   Built a deep understanding of each New York department involved, so I could see the journey at the level the user actually lives it.
2. 2
   Built a service design blueprint

   Mapped family actions, frontstage touchpoints, backstage agency work and support systems side by side — showing where agencies overlapped, where families fell through the cracks, and which gaps design could bridge.
3. 3
   Studied proven patterns

   Reviewed similar services and competitor flows to find design patterns that already solved these pain points.
4. 4
   Listened to families

   Held heartfelt interviews with parents signing on for services to understand what this moment really feels like for them.
5. 5
   Designed, tested, failed, and tested again

   Mocked up the new flow and tested it with parents. The first version didn't pass, so I revised and retested — by the third iteration, 9 out of 10 parents understood how to apply.

Four agencies, one family, overlapping asks

Each department owned part of the process. Seen side by side, the same family was asked for similar information more than once, and the hand-offs between departments were invisible to the people applying.

The interviews made it personal. Parents were applying while juggling work, children and paperwork — often on a phone, in short bursts. Every unclear step felt like a reason to stop and try again "later."

Borrowing what already works

Three iterations to get it right

Sign on, follow the steps, submit

The tested flow lets a parent sign on with just a phone number, move through short guided steps, and submit with a clear confirmation of what happens next.

What testing proved, and what launched

In testing, the redesign did what it set out to do. Without the email requirement, parents who had been stuck at sign-on got through. In the third and final round, 9 out of 10 parents understood how to apply, and 9 out of 10 completed the application, a 20% rise in completion.

What launched: MyCity's live sign-on no longer requires an email address. Families can register with a username instead, so the barrier I identified is gone. My tested design went further, with phone sign-on and a texted code, which the city didn't adopt at launch. OTI also launched a digital child care application on MyCity, though the bigger citywide goal of one form for every City service hasn't been realized yet. That's why the results above come from usability testing, not live usage data.

Mapping the four agencies into one journey also gave the city a shared view of where the process overlapped — and where it could be simplified next.

What I learned

Failing a round is part of the work. The first test showed exactly where my assumptions were wrong. Without it, we would have shipped those problems to real families.

Design across departments, not inside one. Families don't see org charts. The biggest wins came from the gaps between departments, not from any single screen.