Case Study
Supporting the Virginia Poverty Law Center's Transition to Online Eviction Defense
VPLC approached me to provide coaching as they shifted their eviction program from a traditional hotline to a innovative online tool. I guided the VPLC team — on a quite limited budget — as they created this new digital solution and coached them in its implementation.
To define the strategy for the project, I led a small project:
Defined an audience research plan to understand tenant needs. It turned out we were able to rely on substantive research that had already been done.
Interviewed internal stakeholders to understand the priorities and success metrics
Workshopped the project's key goals, audiences, and challenges to understand the core priorities
Determined the best technology approach, site structure and strategy for their limited budget by workshopping a set of diagrams
Help secured buy-in from organizational leadership
“Laura’s help was absolutely critical to the success of our project. We had a tight budget and an aggressive timeline. Things could have gone sideways many times but Laura’s advice kept us on track and helped us make good, informed decisions. ”
I often use diagrams to help my clients understand the options for their site in a strategy project. The diagram below shows the core of the site: a decision tree that’s linked to pages with more information and scripts to use in court. This format is often called a “page flow diagram” because it shows the high level functionality of number of webpages.
Through weekly coaching sessions, I helped VPLC bring this vision to life:
Web Firm Selection: Provided expertise on how to conduct an RFP process and participated in selection interviews
Project Management: Offered tips for effectively managing their content creation process, keeping the work on track.
Technology Selection: Participated in discussions on the best CMS platform, which ultimately recommended Drupal over WordPress.
UX Integration: Advised on how to seamlessly integrate the new decision-tree tool with the rest of the site.
Design Review: Provided feedback on wireframes and visual designs to ensure alignment with user needs.
Vendor Communication: Assisted in framing tricky questions and emails to the website development firm.
Launch and Wrap Up: Worked with the team and web firm to prioritize issues and finalize the site for launch.
The new platform, FightMyEviction.org, is enabling VPLC to assist significantly more individuals facing eviction, and is attracting extensive media attention to VPLC's work. I continue to coach this team as they look to the next phase. I’ve also started a new project helping the overall VPLC leadership think through a strategy for both the VPLC.org site and an ambitious new site to serve all Virginia residents in many areas of law.
