A to Z: Modernizing Arizona's Public Notices

Project Background

The state of Arizona is working on a multipronged effort to enhance the client experience and operational efficiency of the state’s public benefits programs, including the launch of a new integrated benefits online platform, A to Z Arizona. The platform will streamline clients’ application to and management of programs including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Child Care Assistance, and others. As one element of this initiative, DES is focusing on the modernization of program notices—such as application confirmations, eligibility determinations, and renewal notices—sent to members of the public in multiple languages.

The Public Policy Lab is partnering with DES to lead the modernization of these notices over the course of eighteen months, with redesigned notices rolling out in stages and beginning to be implemented at scale by the end of 2026. Clear, streamlined communications between clients and agency staff will mean less time spent clarifying requests and correcting errors, increased client satisfaction and response rates, and a more efficient use of the public resources that support these programs.

Notices Reviewed

Research Participants

What We Found

We conducted research focusing on the following inquiry areas:

The Context: What are the parameters for program operations and client communications as defined by policy, technology, and staffing?
The Journey: How are notices situated within the broader service journey, for both DES staff and clients?
The Clients: What are the preferences of clients in terms of notice design, contents, and how they interact with the notices?

Our research began with reviewing policy resources from federal and state sources, contextual resources on Arizona demographics and DES benefits programs, and past work in this area.

We then assessed over 150 notices across the SNAP and Child Care Assistance programs. After reading, cataloguing, and summarizing each notice, we tagged them across a variety of form elements—like the journey phase in which the notice is distributed, what triggers the notice, and what category of information the notice falls under.

Notices Review

We assessed over 150+ notices across SNAP and Child Care Assistance programs.

Through workshops and small group interviews, we also conducted human-centered research with eighteen participants, including Arizona DES frontline staff, community-based organization (CBO) staff, subject matter experts, and members of the public who receive benefits.

We learned that the notices are produced using back-end systems that vary across programs and have different capabilities and limitations when it comes to notice design. Some benefit programs are able to use formatting tools to create notices with bolded headers, icons, and easy-to-read fonts, while other programs must distribute notices directly from mainframe systems that don’t allow much formatting. This means that clients who apply for or are enrolled in multiple programs may receive notices that look different from one another, which can be confusing.

Policy and System Expert Workshop

In a workshop with policy and systems experts, we visualized the Arizona notices journey from awareness to renewal.

We also found that the policies that govern SNAP and childcare notices are clear on what needs to be included in different types of notices, but don’t give detailed guidance regarding appearance or exactly what needs to be said.

To better understand the journey of DES staff and clients, we conducted workshops with policy and systems experts. Together, we visualized the journey for both clients and staff as they navigate the five stages to access and maintain Arizona’s SNAP and Child Care benefits: awareness, pre-application, application, certification period, and renewal. We mapped where notices appear along this journey and indicated when conversations occur between clients and staff.

In exploring client preferences, we heard three principles repeatedly:

Consistent Information

Clients value consistent information across service interactions, whether in the form of paper notices or conversations with DES staff. Inconsistency leads to confusion and distrust.

Knowing What's Next

Clients value knowing exactly what they need to do next with clear, actionable steps. Simple layouts with clear visual cues help clients focus on what matters most.

Journey-Based Notices

Clients value when notices are in sync with their journey through the program. Notices should arrive at the right time, convey the correct steps, and should not contradict other information clients receive.

What We Designed

Based on what we learned through research, we created low-fidelity prototypes of redesigned notices. We iterated on these prototype designs with clients, staff at community-based organizations, and experts in program operations and policy compliance.

Through codesign workshops, we tested versions of notices that differed in tone, wording, information architecture, and layout. Participants marked up the notices, indicating areas that felt confusing or wording that spurred feelings of trust. We observed where clients got stuck and what design and language elements proved cumbersome.

Some clients preferred notices with a warm tone, while others preferred notices that were to the point. Clients generally preferred short and concise sentences, but sometimes adding a few more words for clarity helped their understanding.

Overwhelmingly, clients wanted to feel like the notice was personal. They wanted to see specific reasons why information was being sent to them or see their case details reflected. Titles like “We Need More Information From You” were often better received compared to “More Information Needed”.

We used our findings to redesign a set of ten SNAP notices and six Child Care Assistance notices, which served as our test notices. To give us a diverse set of samples to test, we chose notices that prompted client action and that represented different formats or layouts (e.g., short vs. longer informational sections and information requests).

In reimagining the notices’ visual design, structure, and written content, we implemented elements such as:

accessible language that is compliant with policy requirements,
tone that finds a balance between being respectful and straightforward,
design guidelines to help keep visuals consistent across programs, and
clear structure that highlights the most important information.

Beyond the notices themselves, we explored updates to supporting communication materials, including the creation of a client journey map to send after application submission. We also redesigned existing enclosures that are sent out with notices, like change report forms, hearing requests, and informational one-pagers.

Pilot Testing
In late 2025, we tested redesigned notice and enclosure prototypes with Arizona clients. We combined in-depth qualitative research with comparative A/B testing, engaged both English- and Spanish-speaking participants, and focused on testing the highest-impact, most complex notices.

Participants showed a clear preference for PPL’s redesigned notices: 71% of Child Care Assistance pilot participants and 82% of SNAP pilot participants said the redesigned notices were easier to read compared to the originals.

We learned three key insights from pilot testing:

1. First impressions are everything.

Clients’ level of engagement is determined within three to five seconds of looking at a notice.
Dense-looking pages reduce comprehension; strategic spacing across pages reduces overwhelm and increases confidence.
Explainers and examples increase comprehension for complex sections.

2. Specificity promotes client action.

Sequenced actions boost client confidence: providing step-by-step instructions significantly improves clients’ ability to act independently.
Vague instructions in notices lead to guesswork, resulting in blank responses and outreach to DES for assistance.

3. Tone matters for client connection and agency.

Active voice and personalized language build connection.
Transparency about the reasons behind DES decision-making supports client agency.
Clients prefer direct, action-oriented language with a polite tone.

Additionally, given the nationwide focus on reducing states’ SNAP payment error rates, we focused in particular on SNAP notices that may drive client-driven errors: notices that request information from the client or ask them to report changes. When testing these notices and forms, we identified moments where language choices could directly impact clients’ ability to report income accurately:

Clients often didn’t think of child support, public benefits, or Social Security Income as “income” to report. When forms asked about income changes without mentioning these types of income explicitly, clients either didn’t think to report them or didn’t know where to write them in the form. Labeling these sections “Income & Benefits” or asking explicitly about changes to income from non-employment sources ensured clients reported this income accurately.
When change reporting forms asked for an “Amount,” clients answered inconsistently—some reported the amount of recent income change, while others reported the new total income amount. Using “Current Amount” yielded more accurate and consistent answers.
Open-ended questions like “What changed?” often stumped clients. Many clients would write similarly vague answers that didn’t give DES meaningful information, such as “Job,” or “Amount.” Turning these questions into multiple-choice questions led to more specific and accurate answers.

[The PPL version] doesn’t sound so authoritative. It sounds like you actually care about what’s going on, where [the DES version] sounds like you’re just another number in the system.”

—Participant in A/B testing

Redesigned Materials

We used our pilot learnings to improve Arizona’s entire system for food and childcare notices. Starting from an inventory of 167 SNAP notices and 48 Child Care Assistance notices, we combined duplicates and retired outdated notices to land on a final set of 127 SNAP and 29 Child Care Assistance notices to redesign. We asked DES partners to carefully review the most complex and highest-impact notices first, then applied that input to the full set.

We also redesigned a set of enclosures—informational materials or forms sent in envelopes alongside notices—to complement the notices. This included forms crucial to error rate reduction for SNAP, such as the Change Report Form, as well as enclosures designed to streamline the information request process for Child Care Assistance.

Interested in learning more? Check out our webinar on best practices for designing benefits notices.

Implementation

In May 2026, we delivered the full set of redesigned materials to DES, identifying high-priority notices to begin implementing first. We worked with DES to understand each program’s biggest priority for implementation. For Child Care Assistance, we prioritized the most frequently sent notices; for SNAP, we prioritized notices and enclosures thought to be linked to client-driven errors.

We also provided resources to support DES in implementing the materials and scaling to other programs, including:

Client-friendly language guidelines, with plain-language tips in English and Spanish for any program team to use when updating their notices
Notice templates in Microsoft Word that policy and systems teams can use when implementing or updating notices
Enclosure templates in InDesign that the graphics & design team can use as the new standard for enclosures across DES

Redesigned notices have the opportunity to support hundreds of thousands of Arizonans who rely on DES programs to put food on the table and care for their families. Improved client comprehension is projected to drive higher response rates and more complete, accurate returns. This means fewer support calls or office visits for questions, freeing up caseworker workload and improving administrative efficiency. For the SNAP program specifically, having more accurate client data from change-reporting forms can help improve accuracy and safeguard the program.

DES is currently reviewing these materials for implementation. In the interim, Public Policy Lab is using what we learned to create CLARA—an AI-assisted tool that helps states generate compliant notices that are understandable to the families who receive them—and to release two modifiable, plain-language templates for SNAP change reporting for use by other states.

Projects

A to Z: Modernizing Arizona’s Public Notices

Partners & Funders

The Project

The Outcome

A to Z: Modernizing Arizona’s Public Notices

Partners & Funders

The Project

The Outcome

Project Background