Designing clarity during crisis
How we architected clarity for 40 million Californians during a rapidly evolving public health emergency.
ROLE
Content Strategist
TEAM
Office of Digital Innovation
TIMELINE
2020
THE CHALLENGE
Chaos to clarity
When COVID-19 hit, Californians were navigating rapidly changing public health guidance from dozens of uncoordinated sources. Information was fragmented, inconsistent, and often written in dense policy language that was nearly impossible for everyday people to act on.
The design goal:
Create a single, trust source of truth that translated complex, evolving health orders into clear, actionable guidance- published in hour, not days.
Primary obstacles:
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Constantly shifting data inputs
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High risk of misinformation and public confusion
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Dense legal and policy language not optimized for public understanding
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Dozens of state agencies producing conflicting or redundant information
THE PROCESS
Governor's Office
Policy updates & executive orders
Agency Subject Matter Experts
Legal and health review
Content Design
Structure, plain language, localize
Publish
Live to 40+ millions residents
THE SOLUTION
Architecting for resilience
Action-Oriented Architecture
We shifted from "What is the virus?" to "What do people need to do right now?" I led the restructuring of the Housing & Homelessness and Food Assistance portals to focus on eligibility and immediate application steps.
Inclusive Localization
Translation often breaks design layouts. I built content templates that accommodated text expansion for Spanish, Tagalog, and Traditional Chinese, ensuring the hierarchy remained intact across all 8 supported languages.
THE IMPACT
Easier to localize
Plain-language content reduced translation errors and made product copy more accurate across all regions.
Better drafts, faster
Designers produced clearer first drafts with fewer rewrites.
Smoother engineering handoff
Consistent rules reduced back-and-forth and eliminated implementation gaps.