Custom Product
Duration: 4 Months
My Role: UX Consultant & Design Lead
Tools: Sketch, Marvel, & WebManager
Deliverables: Completed calculator with print out
The Client
BRYAN L. SALAMONE & ASSOCIATES, P.C.
The Long Island law firm of Bryan L. Salamone & Associates, P.C. is entirely dedicated to divorce and family law. Their firm handles all legal issues related to divorce, including asset division, real estate, probate and criminal as they relate to divorce, child custody and child support cases.
DISCOVER
PROBLEM STATEMENT
New York attorneys typically use the New York State child custody calculator in the courthouse. Our client Salamone would like to be able to provide a child custody and maintenance calculator to both lawyers and clients to be able to use within the courthouse.
How might we create a robust, user friendly calculator for both attorneys and clients to use, to make the child support and maintenance information readily available in their divorce cases?
COMPETITIVE FEATURE ANALYSIS
Features found in Bryan L. Salamone & Associates Child Support & Maintenance Calculator were compared with two competitor calculators. Conducting a competitive feature analysis helped us identify industry standards that are expected and helped us gain insight into how the current features on Salamone’s Calculator stacks up against others in the field. Through this exercise, we determined that features such as entering/estimating FICA, NYC, & Yonkers tax, deviation from guideline amount, spousal names, and organized print outs were industry-standard features that must be included in our minimum viable product (MVP).
COMPARATIVE FEATURE ANALYSIS
As part of our competitive analysis, we also evaluated and compared website features of several of Bryan L. Salamone’s Child Support & Maintenance Calculator comparators. Assessing the calculator features of comparative organizations helped us reevaluate what features should and should not be included in Salamone’s calculator. From this exercise, we determined features such as real time updates, progress bars, and icons are features that should be included in our MVP.
USER INTERVIEWS
Three divorcees and three lawyers were interviewed to try to understand their respective needs, goals, and pain points when undergoing the divorce process. For divorcees, we wanted to learn how they navigated their divorce in relation to understanding the child support and maintenance split. For lawyers we wanted to understand their process when approaching child support and maintenance within a case.
Overall, we observed that of the divorcees and lawyers:
Divorcees:
2/3 wanted to better understand the child support and maintenance split within their divorce but found the calculators available to be confusing because of legal terminology
2/3 found their lawyer influenced tension between the spouses
All wanted a amicable divorce with split custody
Lawyers:
All found it helpful when having the support and maintenance information all laid out on paper when going into court
All found it helpful to use a generated calculator
DEFINE
PERSONA DEVELOPMENT
Based on the insights gathered from initial user interviews, we crafted two primary personas to embody the type of person who would use a child support and custody calculator.
JoAnna Woodson
Age: 37
Profession: Project manager
Location: Yonkers
JoAnna and her husband have been married for eight years and share four children together. The recent lockdown has caused she and her husband a lot of frustration within their marriage and they have decided that parting ways is what is healthiest for them and their children. JoAnna’s lawyer is a friend of a friend’s and is not hiding their intentions to make this divorce messy. She and her soon to be ex husband have agreed to be as amicable and possible and she fears she may be influenced to become more aggressive by her lawyer. In an attempt to avoid this, she is seeking a child support and maintenance calculator to make sure she and her husband meet and equal agreement.
Goals:
Split custody
Non-confrontational divorce
Understand what she and her husband will be splitting financially
Needs:
Accessible information about child support & maintenance to review with her husband
As much information as possible to prevent the lawyer from talking her into confrontation with her husband
Pain points:
Lack of understanding of child support & maintenance
Lawyer’s clear desire to create conflict between both parties
Joseph Antinello
Age: 48
Profession: Divorce attorney
Location: NYC
Joseph has been a divorce attorney in New York City for the past 10 years. He recently left a large firm to start his own practice. He’s found it overwhelming but is excited to begin serving his clients in the best way he can. So far, he handles about 5 to 7 clients at a time and finds it difficult to have completed child support and maintenance information readily available to him.
Goals:
Be able to increase his client base by 50% within the upcoming months
Needs:
Easy to read print out of child support and maintenance information
Find a software to easily calculator child support and maintenance information
Pain points:
Using too much time to take notes on child support and maintenance
Using print outs of the information that do not organize it in the most efficient/effective way
The creation of these personas led to a few key aspects of the calculator. It was realized:
A printer friendly PDF is needed so the large amount of calculated information is laid out in a clear organized way
The calculator needs to be made in simpler terms for people with no legal background can understand what is being asked