Background

A Public Service With a Revenue Mandate

The California State Lottery is one of the state’s most visited public-facing digital properties. Every dollar it generates goes directly to California public education — making it a public service with an unusually concrete revenue obligation. When the digital experience falls short, it doesn’t just frustrate users; it reduces funding for California’s schools.

By 2016, the Lottery’s digital presence needed a fundamental rethink. The existing platform predated widespread mobile adoption and had not kept pace with how Californians — from urban commuters to rural residents — were engaging with retail and entertainment content on their phones. Vendors were frustrated. Customers were disengaged. The experience across devices was inconsistent, and neither the UX nor the underlying requirements framework was built to support the Lottery’s evolving digital strategy.

I was brought in through ICF International as the senior requirements analyst and UX lead to drive the responsive redesign from discovery through statewide launch.

The Challenge

Consumer Expectations, Government Constraints

A California state website can’t simply be redesigned the way a commercial product can. Requirements had to satisfy California governance standards, accessibility compliance, and the Lottery’s own regulatory context — while simultaneously delivering an experience that could meaningfully engage the broad, diverse population of California lottery players across every device and screen size.

On the delivery side, the project ran in an Agile environment with 100+ user stories across multiple epics — spanning vendor-facing features, consumer-facing game discovery, retailer tools, and results lookup. Stakeholders ranged from Lottery executives and IT architects to retail partners and consumer advocacy representatives, each with legitimate but sometimes competing priorities. Requirements had to be elicited, negotiated, documented, and kept current through an iterative delivery cadence.

My Approach

Research-Grounded Requirements Across a Diverse User Base

Every requirement on this project had to be anchored in something real — whether that was user research, stakeholder interviews, data, or regulatory obligation. I led the full discovery and requirements process using the following approach:

1. Stakeholder interviews and requirements elicitation — Organized and conducted structured interviews with Lottery leadership, IT teams, retail partners, and consumer representatives to define scope, clarify constraints, and surface requirements that weren’t visible in the existing documentation. Each interview was designed to uncover both stated and unstated needs.

 

2. User type definition and permission mapping — Defined the distinct user types interacting with the Lottery’s digital properties — players, retailers, vendors, and administrators — and documented what each user type needed to access, accomplish, and avoid. This became the foundation for the information architecture and access control requirements.

 

3. Business and functional requirements documentation — Gathered and documented user requirements, business requirements, and functional specifications covering all workflows across the responsive platform — from game browsing and results lookup to retailer tools and administrative functions.

 

4. UX best practices advocacy — Advocated for and presented research-backed UX principles to the Lottery and ICF stakeholders, drawing on standards from UXMatters, Human Factors International, and Nielsen Norman Group. Translated these principles into specific, testable design and interaction requirements rather than vague guidance.

 

5. Agile delivery across 100+ user stories — Worked within an Agile Java environment managing 100+ user stories across multiple epics. Contributed to sprint planning, backlog prioritization, and acceptance validation — ensuring requirements were development-ready at each sprint boundary and that delivered features matched the documented acceptance criteria.

 

6. Usability testing plans and validation — Developed usability testing plans for components and modules derived directly from stakeholder and customer interview requirements. Testing was conducted prior to development to validate interaction design decisions — reducing rework and increasing confidence in the delivered experience before it went to the Java development team.

 

7. Multi-platform and multi-device strategy — Created strategic solutions for mobile, responsive, and desktop web — ensuring the redesigned experience was consistent and functional across the full range of devices used by California’s diverse lottery-playing population, from flagship smartphones to older devices in underserved communities.

Key Deliverables

What I Produced

User Type Definitions & Permission Matrix

Documented access levels and task flows for players, retailers, vendors, and administrators

Usability Testing Plans

Structured test plans for components and modules, derived from interview-based requirements and executed prior to development

Multi-Platform Design Strategy

Strategic requirements and interaction specifications for mobile, responsive, and desktop web environments