I tried to fix my hometown's COVID Vaccine Registration process. It did not go well.

Like basically all humans on planet Earth right now, I'm interested in the COVID-19 vaccine. Specifically, I'm interested in getting it for my parents both of whom are elderly and one of which is in a high-risk group.

Imagine my dismay when I spoke to my Mother on the phone and she told me that she spent an hour trying to find where to register for a vaccine.

I assumed she was just confused or exaggerating, so I decided to visit our local Wicomico County Department of Health website for myself.

She was not exaggerating.

Here's what you have to do -- and figure out on your own (!) -- to register for a COVID vaccine via the local Department of Health.

How to get a Vaccine in Way Too Many Steps

Step 1: First, you arrive at this marvel of information architecture.

Now, you might assume that given that the world is in a global pandemic of historic proportions that there would be a form, a link, or some other clear indicator of how it is that we access the solution to this pandemic.

But if it's there, I couldn't find it.

Step 2: Eventually I found the Programs & Services dropdown menu, which opens like this.

I was busy looking on this menu for a "CLICK HERE TO GET A VACCINE" or "COVID-19 VACCINES TO END THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC ARE IN THIS MENU", but my search was fruitless.

Step 3: Thankfully, I eventually clicked "Emergency Preparedness" with the intuition that, despite what this site has demonstrated so far, COVID-19 is indeed a current medical emergency.

Step 4: For those keeping track at home, we are now on our third click without a vaccine in sight.

But if I scroll down a bit, there is a box that says "COVID-19"! Eureka!

Step 5: Ah, but my dreams are dashed yet again. Scrolling down, I see this mysterious pyramid. Where do I click? In tiny letters it indicates in a broken HTML tag to "click for details".

Do I click the text? Nope, that doesn't work. What about on the big "INFORMATION" at the top? Nope, not there either.

Oh, I click this image in the middle of page that gives no indication it is actually a button/link and not just a static image!

Here comes the vaccine for my cancer-surviving Father!

Step 6: Ah, just kidding. This link opens a PDF.

I sure hope that all the elderly people with computers from 2008 and browsers that haven't been been updated in 4 years have good PDF support!

The vaccine has never felt closer and yet it seems that this PDF is asking me to take more steps to get in line!

Let's break it down.

First I need to locate this email address and open my email client. Then I need to provide the information required in this email. This includes "what phase I'm in" and "how I qualify for that phase".

How am I supposed to know the answers to these questions?

Presumably I use the pyramid. But wait -- the pyramid is nowhere to be found!

I'm now in PDF-land, so I need to remember what's on this page or open it in a new tab, click the back button so I can see the pyramid, then do the self-analysis necessary to know what I must put into the blank email I have open in my email client.

Each of these requirements is a sort of mini-step in the process, bringing us to a messy ~10-ish things I must do and manage to get an email to the health department.

Now, I'm not an IDEO-certified Design Thinker but I'm pretty sure this would not qualify as an "effective and accessible" user experience.

I'm being a bit cheeky, but the reality is that this is a serious problem. I'm a young person who works in technology and I had a hard time finding this link.

How is an 83 year-old with failing eyesight going to fare on this journey?

Contacting the Mayor of Salisbury, Maryland

Now, I grew up in a small town in rural Maryland. I figured, hey, if there's any benefit from being from such a small place, it's the accessibility of the local government. So I decided to contact the Mayor.

I was determined not to be another ranty, complainy internet person so I made a bold offer:

I would build the Health Department an online form. It would ask a few questions to automatically categorize people into their slice of the pyramid. Then it would generate the email that the Health Department needed. I would do it this weekend and for free.

Here's my full post to the Mayor on Facebook:

The post gathered a lot of support, including from people asking me to call them on the phone and commenting that they too had found the process "cumbersome".

The Mayor was great and offered to introduce me to the relevant parties. Thanks, Mayor Day!

Meeting the Public Information Officer

And that's when I got a Facebook message. It was the Public Information Officer for the Wicomic County Health Department.

I was really happy to hear from this person, though I found it interesting that they chose to be conspicuously absent from the public conversation and to back-channel me instead.

We agreed to talk on the phone. I called them and the conversation went roughly like this:

"Hi my name is Zach. I just wanted to share with you the experience my Mother and no doubt many others had while trying to sign up for the vaccine. I believe I may be able to help make this process easier for elderly people".

"We are doing the best we can. They haven't even sent us enough vaccines."

"I totally understand. It's a crazy time and no doubt especially for your office. I'm just trying to see if we could make the signup process easier for the elderly."

"The State has mandated that we do it this way."

"The State of Maryland mandates that you bury this sign up link so deeply on the page and have to coordinate it with emails?!"

"No, no, we have to do the process online to keep track of vaccine use."

"OK, that makes sense. I can make a form that sends the data direct to the email you're using for the process now. It can be structured so a person clicks one link, fills out the fields and you get a nice consistent email. We can host it on a separate URL or link to it from your page."

"Things are stressful right now. My inbox already has 6000 emails in it."

"I can make the form send the data somewhere else then. It could do everything you're requiring of people right now, but in a way that lowers your own workload and lowers what you're asking of elderly people on your site."

"This is the best process we've found so far."

"My parents could not find the link on your website... I'm certain they are not alone..."

"People are confusing us with a private hospital who is also giving vaccines. Our call center gets 600 calls per day. A form would just add more steps to this process. People want a confirmation email. Your Facebook post is spreading misinformation."

"I will update anything about the post that is actually untrue. And a form would actually remove steps from the process. A confirmation is no problem. I can make the form tell people any message you want once they submit it. We can even send a confirmation email when they submit the form."

"We already do that with an auto-response on the email."

"OK... but people cannot even find this email. The process is too complicated."

long silence

"I just don't want any of this reflecting negatively back on us." <-- Actually said on the call.

nerd-rage increasing

"OK. Well. Uh... Good luck with everything, I guess..."

The User Experience of Bureaucracy

I must admit that I was pretty irritated after this call.

No doubt the PIO sees me as an annoying internet person shoving my nose in their business. But I remain convinced that the signup process is broken.

From my perspective, I had removed essentially all downside from saying "yes" to solving this problem -- free work, from a professional, on a tight time-frame, no strings-attached.

I also have no doubt the PIO is a nice person. But something happens when people enter bureaucracies, especially bureaucracies that do not face competition (as anyone who has dealt with the DMV or an insurance conglomerate has no doubt felt). They become almost sociopathic in their disregard for the experience of others.

Governments are not magical entities. They deliver bundles of goods and services that communities require. There is no reason that these goods and services cannot be effective and well-designed.

In a way, COVID-19 is a society-level call to arms.

Our public administrators and medical professionals, often ignored and neglected in the public eye, have a chance to distinguish themselves as stand-up citizens and the leaders we all need. Some leaders have indeed done this (go Google the PM of New Zealand or Taiwan's digital minister).

Others seem content to make excuses in the moment they're needed most.

Update: They fixed the broken tag and moved the instructions out of a PDF and onto the page itself! I guess complaining does help sometimes ;-)