RecordTrac Public Records Request Management
RecordTrac is an open source application that allows agencies to easily manage public records requests.
Project
As a Fellow with Code for America, and in partnership with the City of Oakland, I conducted exploratory research and identified that city employees who were responsible for responding to public record requests didn't have the tools to manage their workflow.
More and more, residents expected 24/7 services, but the city was using a system that was cumbersome for both city staff and community members.
RecordTrac streamlined the process by helping people make requests and helping city employees respond to them.
Response screen
Documentation sitemap
Process
The team, consisting of a back-end developer, a communications specialist, and myself, used an agile process to develop RecordTrac, starting with researching the processes of both City staff and requesters in January of 2013. We prototyped and implemented smaller, internal launches over the course of the last year and a half. We first started taking live requests in the City Clerk’s office in June of 2013. We incrementally added users from all remaining departments leading up to our full, public launch on Oct 2, 2013, which allowed us to fully track requests throughout the City.
Early wireframe for response page
Roles
Product Strategy
Project Management
Design & User Research
Information Architecture
Design for Experience
Service Design
Interaction Design
Front-end development
Outcome
The major innovation in RecordTrac is that every request and response is publicly viewable. Anyone can access any previously disclosed public record on the system.
Since the launch, RecordTrac has helped the City of Oakland manage over 16k of requests and counting. The largest city to follow suit, New York City launched NYC OpenRECORDS in spring of 2016 and has already tracked hundreds of requests.
Status representations closer to launch