Ministry of Justice

Creating a scalable and digital service for prisoners to send money

Service design • UX/UI design

This case study demonstrates my ability to tackle complex UX challenges in a highly specialised field, balancing user needs with technical constraints and business objectives showcasing my skills in user research, facilitation, data visualisation, and iterative design processes.

Background

Although prisoners can’t spend or earn money freely, money is an important part of their life.

Get paid for work inside the prison, e.g. cleaning and cooking
Order essentials and shopping, e.g. toothpaste and CDs
Receive/send money to friends and family, e.g. gift for their children, inheritance
Leaving the prison with their money

I worked on a series of services to help prisoners to manage their money, this case study focuses on sending money out of prison.

The problem

Previously, prisoners can send money by cash, postal order and cheque. The process internally is manual, lengthy and insecure. How might we make it easier, faster and cheaper? How might we enable the money to arrive by bank transfer although prisoners can’t access the internet?

Challenges

A service that works in all 110+ prisons

Design for illiterate and non-English speaking prisoners
Collaborate with third-party payment provider
Distribution and production of the paper forms. Prisoners don’t have access to technology. Paper forms are used everywhere.

Service design and touchpoint design

To guide touchpoint design, I developed a service map. However, during user research, we focused on user interactions with actual touchpoints rather than the map itself.

When analysing feedback and iterating, we evaluated both the overall service process and individual touchpoints. This dual approach ensured a cohesive user experience.

A critical aspect was testing how touchpoints worked together seamlessly. For instance, we examined how easily prisoners could complete paper forms and how efficiently staff could transfer this information to the digital system.

This approach allowed us to create a user-centred service design that addressed the needs of both prisoners and staff.

Paper form design

Designing paper forms for the prison system presented unique challenges, as it was my first experience with this medium and there were no standardised design patterns in place. Key considerations included:

Printer-friendly layout: Forms needed to fit on a single page for easy printing with standard office equipment.

Information density: Balancing the need to include comprehensive information while providing ample space for handwritten responses.

Identifiable design: Prisoners access the right form for the service they require.

To overcome these challenges, I employed several strategies:

Collected and analysed examples of prison forms and identified the good practices.
Observed how prisoners access forms for services for a few prisons.
Multiple iterations were tested with prisoners and proxy users to refine the design.

This process resulted in forms that were both functional for prison staff and prisoners, addressing the specific needs of the environment.