One dispatcher said it more than once: services could have been rendered faster with better routing. Sitting in on calls alongside UX Strategist and business partner Fas Lebbie, that phrase became the brief. OC Navigator is a non-emergency dispatch tool for Orange County built to free 911 for the calls that actually need it.
Project Details
- Client: Orange County
- Role: UX Designer
- Scope: Field research, information architecture, interaction design
- Type: Government / Public Service
The Challenge
Emergency lines were carrying a load they were never meant to handle. A significant portion of 911 calls in Orange County were not life-threatening situations -- they were residents who needed social services, code enforcement, city departments, mental health support. Dispatchers were routing these calls manually, case by case, while genuine emergencies waited. Every non-emergency call that came through 911 was time and attention pulled away from someone who might actually be dying.
The dispatchers knew this. They lived with it every shift. One dispatcher, during the observational study, kept returning to the same point: services could have been rendered faster with better routing. Not once. More than once. That sentence carried the whole problem.
The Strategy
Fas Lebbie led the observational work on the ground while I listened alongside dispatchers and officials, watching the calls come in and the routing decisions play out in real time. The research surfaced not just what the process looked like on paper but how it actually worked: the workarounds dispatchers had built from years of experience, the mental models they used to triage under pressure, and the specific moments where the existing process created risk or delay.
The design mandate that came from that fieldwork was clear: build something that mirrors how dispatchers already think, reduces the decisions they have to make under pressure, and makes every case trackable without adding overhead to an already demanding job.
The Execution
Information architecture and interaction flows were built around the dispatcher's triage process rather than around the city's organizational chart. Iterative prototyping allowed the team to test routing logic against real dispatcher mental models and refine until the navigation felt like trained instinct rather than learned software behavior.
Forms standardized information gathering that had previously relied on dispatcher memory and informal notes, while a custom notes field preserved the case nuance that structured fields alone cannot capture. The interface was designed to minimize cognitive load at the highest-stress moments: clear case status, logical routing paths, and consistent interaction patterns across all case types.
The Results
The project produced a dispatcher-first tool with a validated interaction model built on what was heard and observed in the field. The design addressed the failure mode common to most institutional software: systems built around bureaucratic structure rather than the people using them under pressure. OC Navigator's routing logic and information architecture were shaped by the dispatchers who live the problem every shift, including the one who said it plainest: services could have been rendered faster.