Early research with local government staff helped me understand administrative workflows and residentservice challenges, which informed design decisions across multiple product areas.

Throughout the process, I worked closely with engineering and leadership to balance user needs, technical constraints, and business priorities while continuously testing and incorporating feedback from customers.

How cities use Polimorphic                 

Tooele, in Tooele County, Utah

Improving Internal Efficiency

The Problem

Government teams are managing increasing workloads with limited staff capacity. Tooele county saw an increase in residents to serve and workload without an increase in staff. These long term employees hold the knowledge of how the government operates in their heads without a way to easily train the next generation.

Design Goal

Help staff increase efficiency. ‍

Key product decisions

• Digitize applications and enter data into workflows
• AI can check if submissions are complete and worthy of staff review, improving turnaround time and satisfaction
• Consolidate application-related information into a single case view
  
• Reduce reliance on long email threads

New streamlined workflow

Digital submission with Pre-Submission Review ensures applications are complete before getting routed to staff for approval and processing

Impact of using Polimorphic

Error Reductions

By leveraging AI pre-review to assist with document indexing and processing, the office saw a notable reduction in errors, improving the overall accuracy of the work.

Pacifica, CA

Simplifying Resident Services

The Problem

Residents struggle to navigate government sites and services. People often don’t know the correct terms, how a city organizes departments, or where to find what they are looking for. 

Many services are manual and paper processes. Paper applications and processes require in-person visits and place a time-tax on residents.

Design Goal

Make resident-facing services easier to access, understand, and complete independently.

Key product decisions

• Offer people multiple options on how to access information.
• Incorporate AI to search and answer queries in non-technical language
• Create a flexible layout to work across multiple client websites

24/7 Self-Serve products

AI chat, voice and search

Impact of using Polimorphic in Pacifica, CA

Pacifica CA added AI search, chat, text and voice which they named Rose AI, after their longest living resident. In the year since it's launch early 2024, it has won a CA Innovation award and won the 2025 Helen Putnam Award of Excelence, but most importantly provided open and efficent constituent service, freeing up staff time for more complex and high-priority work.

The Problem

• Multilingual communities often have to wait for translation support
• Residents may lack access or skills to use technology
• PDFs and scanned documents may not work with screen readers
• In-person requirements create barriers for residents with limited mobility (or busy work and child-care schedules)
• Municipalities must keep pace with evolving Title II ADA requirements
• Smaller government teams may lack dedicated accessibility expertise

Wins for creating an accessible experience

Accessible digital forms replace hard-to-read PDFs

Multilingual search, chat, and voice experiences for residents

Accessibility audits with assistive technology, automated tools and user testing

Created an accessibility statement for the platform and VPAT
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Adoption of a design system with accessible components
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Provided internal guidance on assistive technology and compliance

The Impact

Residents have more channels to access information how it suits them best. Staff members have more time to spend with the people who need personal attention. Cities have built more trust with residents through services offerred and increased compliance.

Conclusion

One of the most rewarding aspects of this work has been seeing how small improvements compound over time. A better workflow might save a few minutes. A searchable knowledge base might eliminate a phone call. AI-powered chat or voice support might resolve hundreds of routine requests without staff intervention. Individually, those improvements seem small. Together, they create meaningful time savings that allow staff to focus on the work that requires human judgment and expertise.

What I Learned

• With ‘everyone’ being our users, it was helpful to have multiple personas for constituents and staff to identify which users would be accessing a feature and optimize for their needs.
  
• Working at a startup is like working at a new company every 6 months. The team is growing and changing. New customers and projects come onboard with greater feature needs. 
• The care our clients have for their communities is inspiring. Getting to know them, and working alongside my team, has been a highlight of this work.