Ontario offers grants that fund community projects for seniors (55+). 30-40% of application submissions are completed incorrectly. Applicants are disheartened. Evaluators are frustrated. How do we envision a new form?
Poor form design results in 30–40% of applications being completed incorrectly, leading to delays, rejections, and project cancellations. This undermines the very purpose of the Seniors Community Grant program.
"This is a program for seniors and about seniors. Applicants propose phenomenal projects that will improve lives. Because they have to face this application, funding is delayed, and they have to cancel their projects. We're setting them up for failure."
— Grant Evaluator
With limited time before the next funding cycle, we structured our work into two phases:
Drawing from my experience leading best form practices in the Ontario Design System team, I conducted a heuristic evaluation to surface quick wins:
Expanding small text fields and allowing additional rows where needed.
Removing premature payment information requests (before applications are approved).
Using gender-neutral terms and simplifying contact requirements.
Reducing reliance on a separate 22-page document by providing necessary information in the form itself.
To address deeper structural issues, I led a focus group with 5 grant application evaluators to understand their experience.
I chose a focus group because it is time efficient and encourages evaluators to build on each other’s insights. I structured the session with a script and clear time clues to keep us focused, but ultimately left it flexible when there was productive organic discussion. I facilitated balanced participation by prompting the evaluators who spoke up less often.
The discussion revealed deep frustration among evaluators, who had long asked for a redesign. The outdated form created extra administrative work for evaluators and discouraged applicants from reapplying.
"Of course they become disheartened. I can tell you, we have project teams who never want to work with us again. And I can't blame them."
— Grant Evaluator
Evaluators were making up for the faults of the form by reaching out to applicants and manually correcting their forms, which they did not always have the time to. This key insight shaped our next steps, highlighting the need to bridge the gap between applicant expectations and evaluation criteria.
To systematically streamline the form, I advocated for a question protocol workshop with the same 5 evaluators.
Using Miro, I led an online session where we assessed each question by asking:
This structured approach helped us eliminate redundant questions and clarify essential ones, significantly reducing form length.
To uncover precisely which parts of the form caused confusion, our team conducted 13 highlighter test sessions with past applicants. Participants included both applicants who had been rejected or received funding in past applications.
Past applicants marked content as:
Initially, I set up a Google Doc with the form text. I intended to observe participants as they read and highlighted sections. However, some struggled with using the tool. To ensure a smoother experience, I quickly adapted by having participants read aloud and denote colours, while I had an assistant highlight the text on their behalf. This adjustment made the process more inclusive, accommodating different levels of tech comfort.
This research surfaced critical usability barriers:
The form was not compatible with most PDF viewers, causing technical difficulties for many applicants.
Repeated questions and poor flow across sections led applicants to doubt that they answered correctly.
There was a mismatch between how applicants understood questions and the answers evaluators expected, particularly concerning project objectives and priorities.
Applicants did not know what to prioritise. For instance, it was not clear to applicants that evaluators placed high importance on organisational capacity and sustainability.
Some compulsory questions were not applicable to all projects.
Jargon and unclear language posed additional challenges for applicants.
From our research, I distilled 4 key design principles that guided our redesign:
Inspired by their passion, I hosted a co-creation workshop with 4 evaluators and 2 applicants, giving them a direct role in shaping the new form.
I facilitated the session by:
This collaborative approach fostered alignment between applicants and evaluators, leading to a more user-centred form redesign.
I created a Figma prototype of a reimagined grant application driven by our guiding principles. Insights from co-creation directly shaped the prototype, ensuring changes reflected real-world needs.
Government redesigns require more than just better design; they demand advocacy, policy shifts, and structural change. By working closely with the Ministry of Seniors and Accessibility, we achieved 3 key outcomes:
We successfully made the case for moving to a modern webform using the Ontario Design system, although the ministry team anticipated that full implementation could take years.
The webform prototype I created was instrumental to address hesitations and secure buy-in. It highlights the potential for increased accessibility, adaptability to future policy change, and greater ease of maintenance.
Initially, stakeholders resisted revising the budget categories, insisting that the budget categories had always been structured this way.
When I probed further, I found no substantial reasoning behind the rigid structure.
As a result, we secured policy changes that allowed applicants more flexibility in budget allocation, making the process more inclusive and reflective of the diversity of community initiatives.
The transformation of the form meant that evaluation processes also needed updates.
This fell outside the direct scope of our collaboration, so we couldn't overhaul the evaluation process itself.
We focused on revising evaluation criteria, laying the groundwork for a clearer, fairer assessment framework. We also gained the evaluation team’s commitment to further internal refinements.
Challenge the status quo for transformative change
Many of the application’s biggest pain points, such as complex budget categories, ambiguous evaluation criteria, and an outdated form structure, persisted simply because "that’s how it’s always been done."
By questioning long-standing assumptions, we were able to drive user-friendly improvements that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. This project reinforced that I have to continue challenging entrenched practices, advocating for systemic change, and aligning with organisational priorities.
Seeing genuine human connection and imagination translate into tangible change, even within bureaucratic constraints, proves that transformative design is not only possible, but so, so worth it.