Benefits Enrollment Prototype

This is a static-page multi-benefit application and enrollment prototype. The prototype has been designed with applicants for critical public benefit programs to model how to create simpler, user-centered multi-program applications.

To explore the prototype, you can

1. Try out the prototype demo. Note that the hosted demo is not a real application. The hosted site only stores data on the client for the duration of the session.
2. Run a local demo.

Run a local demo

To run a local demo,

1. Install Ruby and Bundler if they are not already installed.
2. Run bundle exec jekyll serve --baseurl ''
3. Visit http://localhost:4000

More info: Using Jekyll as a static site generator with GitHub Pages

Background

Building on the work of Medicaid modernization, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare and the U.S. Digital Service have been working to use the tools of technology and design to improve how benefit applicants get access to critical services.

Our team began by exploring the current state of benefit enrollment and delivery across agencies and states in an extensive qualitative user research field study. See the report of our findings. From here, our team began working closely with local benefit program administrators to identify tools to help accelerate their program modernization efforts.

About this prototype

This prototype demonstrates a user-centered enrollment model that leverages data sharing between agencies to minimize the burden on applicants in determining program eligibility.

In our research, we saw a common need from state programs for an online application template which offices can customize to meet their own policy and user requirements.

The alpha version of the prototype is designed to model how one or more applicants can apply for SNAP and/or Medicaid — two of the largest programs with demographic eligibility overlap.

A note about the code

This prototype is built with static pages and does not use a database of any sort, using sessionStorage instead. Therefore, there is heavy use of Javascript to handle tasks normally done in the application layer. These tasks will read from sessionStorage and manipulate the DOM and use conditional logic to link to the next part of the form. These scripts are located towards the bottom of each page in a <script> tag, and should not be included in a production build. The HTML is intended to be easily customizeable and resuable.