In a place far from home, how do refugees and asylum seekers find information about and understand how to navigate a complex government process of applying for asylum? In this presentation, I’ll share how our team conducted human-centered design research with asylum seekers for the US asylum program, how those insights illuminated areas of improvement for content strategy and service design, and how we redesigned content and services while balancing needs for ease of use and data security.

Finally, I'll show how design strategy work illuminated the need for overhauling our overall organization's strategy. You'll leave this session with insight into the opportunity and impact of thoughtful product strategy in government, examples from specific case studies featuring the work of the United States Digital Service in designing products and services for asylum seekers, and lessons learned from conducting design research with vulnerable communities.

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