{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"negative_space_design__public_administration_policy","archetype_slug":"negative_space_design","domain_slug":"public_administration_policy","title":"Protected attention space in public-benefit adverse-action notices","opportunity_summary":"Test whether reviewed relocation of secondary material and protected spacing around the decision, material reason, available action, and deadline improves recipient comprehension beyond both the current complete template and a conventional plain-language rewrite, while preserving rights, accessibility, full-detail retrieval, and legal sufficiency. The mechanism is well specified, but problem prevalence, comparative effect, stakeholder demand, prior art, and operational cost remain unverified.","adopter_authorizer":"The administering agency's notice owner, acting with program counsel and due-process, accessibility, language-access, records, affected-user, print-mail, and digital-portal reviewers.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"The proposal addresses missed appeals, evidence deadlines, abandoned claims, avoidable support calls, and perceived procedural unfairness, all of which could materially affect recipients. A score of 5 is not supported because prevalence, causal attribution to visual crowding, and realized effect are unmeasured."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"Recipients, advocates, appeals staff, caseworkers, and contact centers have plausible interests in clearer notices, and the candidate names consequences relevant to each. The packet provides no evidence of expressed demand, complaints attributable to crowding, budget commitment, or agency sponsorship."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":4,"rationale":"Protected spacing and recoverable relocation target attention competition that the named plain-language rival leaves substantially unchanged, creating a specific comparative claim. Advantage remains hypothetical until the three-arm test shows improvement without losses in rights recognition, detail retrieval, accessibility, or trust."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The proposal is internally distinguishable from sequential complete templates and same-field plain-language rewriting through its protected-attention mechanism. Prior art is explicitly unsearched, so distinctiveness relative to existing notice design, accessible-document practice, and procedural-justice communication is unknown."},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"Creating static notice variants and running a non-operative comprehension test appears technically tractable using ordinary document-design and research capabilities. Operational implementation is harder because print pagination, mobile scrolling, expandable-detail access, translations, accessibility, calculations, and case-specific complexity must all remain functional."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The administering agency's notice owner is identified, and the candidate specifies the required review functions. Feasibility is only mixed because authority is distributed across program, legal, due-process, accessibility, language-access, records, affected-user, and delivery-system reviewers, with statutory requirements controlling."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"The packet supplies a safe non-operative design, two explicit comparators, measurable outcomes, subgroup halt conditions, and separate problem and intervention falsifiers. Instruments, sampling, recruitment access, program selection, power requirements, and acceptable non-inferiority margins are not yet specified."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"If effective, the intervention could protect timely exercise of appeal and evidence-submission rights for benefit recipients, including groups facing disability, language, literacy, or access barriers. Benefit is not scored 5 because the same groups could be harmed by fragmentation, undiscoverable detail, or perceived concealment."},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"A validated layout pattern could potentially be incorporated into reusable print and portal templates. Scaling is uncertain because statutory content, calculations, languages, accessibility needs, delivery channels, case complexity, page-count effects, and approval structures vary across programs and agencies."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"One preregistered, non-operative three-arm comprehension study using redacted or synthetic notices, with affected-user recruitment, relevant access-group coverage, accessible and language-appropriate materials, agency and legal review, analysis, and reporting.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["The study covers one benefit program and a bounded set of representative notice types.","Existing research facilities and ordinary document-design software are used.","Recruitment includes relevant disability, language, literacy, and access groups but is not nationally representative.","No live benefit decisions, deadlines, or recipient obligations are changed."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Pre-launch preparation for one agency program after favorable evidence, including content classification, template engineering, legal and accessibility approval, translations, print and portal quality assurance, governance, training, and implementation planning.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The agency modifies existing notice-generation and delivery systems rather than replacing them.","The first deployment is limited to one program and a bounded notice family.","Program-specific legal review does not require major statutory or rule changes.","Complex calculations and full-detail records remain recoverable through approved channels."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"A phased operational launch for one program, including production integration, print-mail and portal validation, recipient support preparation, monitoring, subgroup safety checks, and an impact evaluation against an unchanged comparison process where permissible.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Launch is phased rather than agency-wide.","Existing mailing, portal, contact-center, and analytics infrastructure can be adapted.","Page-count and postage increases are limited.","No procurement of a wholly new case-management or document-generation platform is required."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Ongoing governance, template updates, legal and accessibility review, translation maintenance, production quality assurance, monitoring of comprehension and complaints, and incremental delivery costs for one program.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["A validated template family remains relatively stable.","Incremental page, mailing, and mobile-delivery costs are modest at the selected program's volume.","Monitoring uses existing service and appeals data where permitted.","Major policy changes or system replacements are excluded."]}},"research_burden":"MODERATE","earliest_credible_horizon":"3_TO_12_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"The candidate identifies an observable failure—recipients unable to promptly identify what changed, why, available action, deadline, and the full-record route—and connects it to specified procedural harms. Whether this failure is prevalent or caused by density remains unverified."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The administering agency's notice owner is explicitly identified as the potential authorizer, subject to named legal, accessibility, language-access, records, affected-user, and delivery-system reviews."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The negative-space variant makes a distinct comparative claim against both the current complete template and a same-field plain-language rewrite, with specified comprehension, deadline, completeness, accessibility, trust, and retrieval outcomes."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"The candidate authorizes a preregistered, non-operative test using redacted or synthetic notices and explicitly prohibits using results to determine benefits or deadlines."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The research step preserves controlling requirements, excludes removal or concealment of material information, requires protected-group checks, and has explicit halt and rollback conditions. These safeguards support research but do not authorize live deployment."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate identifies relevant systems, reviewers, and possible page-count and scrolling costs, allowing only broad provisional bands. Notice volume, program scope, system architecture, languages, template complexity, procurement needs, and incremental postage are absent, so an operational range cannot yet be supported confidently."}},"blocking_evidence":["Baseline evidence that relevant recipient groups actually have difficulty identifying the decision, material reason, available action, deadline, and full-detail route, with errors plausibly related to density or attention competition.","Comparative evidence that the negative-space variant outperforms both the current template and the plain-language rival on primary comprehension and deadline recognition.","Non-inferiority evidence for recognition of rights and reasons, perceived completeness and trust, accessibility, and retrieval of full detail, including subgroup-specific results.","Program-specific legal, due-process, accessibility, language-access, and records review confirming that the tested treatment preserves required context and accountable notice.","Operational evidence on pagination, postage, mobile scrolling, detail discoverability, unusually complex cases, system modification effort, and recurring governance cost.","Bounded prior-art research establishing how the mechanism differs, if at all, from existing agency notice redesign and accessible-document practices."],"next_evidence_step":"With one agency program and affected-user partners, preregister a non-operative randomized comprehension study comparing the current template, a plain-language same-field rewrite, and the protected-attention variant on redacted or synthetic notices. Measure unaided identification of the decision, material reason, available actions, deadline, and full-detail route; also test rights recall, perceived completeness, trust, accessibility, and retrieval. Reject the diagnosed problem if baseline accuracy is prompt and high across relevant access groups with errors unrelated to density; reject the intervention if it fails to outperform both comparators or worsens any protected subgroup or preservation outcome.","research_questions":["How frequent and consequential are notice-navigation failures across relevant recipient and access groups, and how much variance is attributable to visual density rather than language, missing explanation, distrust, disability barriers, or inability to complete the action?","Which notice elements can be relocated while remaining legally material, accessible, discoverable, and understandable in print and digital formats?","Does protected attention space improve decision, action, and deadline recognition beyond a plain-language rewrite, and what are the effect and non-inferiority results by subgroup?","Do recipients interpret reduced immediate-field detail as clearer hierarchy, missing information, or concealment by the agency?","How do pagination, postage, mobile scrolling, translations, calculations, complex cases, and full-record retrieval affect implementation feasibility and cost?","What existing notice-redesign or accessible-document practices already use the same mechanism, and what incremental contribution remains?","Which notice owner has authority and stakeholder commitment to sponsor research and, only after favorable results, consider a reviewed phased deployment?"] ,"recommendation":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH","uncertainty_constraints":["All effectiveness claims are hypotheses; the packet contains no observed comparative outcomes.","Problem prevalence, subgroup distribution, service burden, missed-deadline incidence, and stakeholder demand are unmeasured.","Prior art is unsearched, so novelty and real-world distinctiveness cannot be claimed.","Legal sufficiency and accessibility are program- and jurisdiction-specific and are not established by the structural proposal.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent planning ranges, not estimates, because notice volume, system architecture, languages, page-count effects, and deployment scale are unspecified.","The earliest horizon applies to credible non-operative evidence, not authorization for live notices.","Synthetic or redacted-notice performance may not fully predict behavior under the stress and consequences of an actual adverse action."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"No external sources were consulted. The sealed packet explicitly labels prior art as unsearched and provides no evidence about prevalence, market size, adoption, realized impact, comparable implementations, or world novelty. Distinctiveness is therefore assessed only against the packet's named baseline and plain-language rival; any broader novelty or practice claim requires external research."}