Improving An Immigration Form Experience to Accelerate Services

Creative UX Solution That Processed Applications 40% Faster

Role

Led UX Team of 3 Designers

Context

Mission-critical platform serving 8M+ people

Experience

UI Design, Product Leadership

Impact Highlights

Transformed a complex immigration application experience into a streamlined one that accelerated safety access for crime victims.
Through fast iteration and actionable research, we delivered a successful user-centric product ahead of schedule.
Under my leadership, I was able to inspire the client to implement the same level of strategic design thinking for other immigration applications.

Here's the whole story…

Issues to be Fixed

Inefficient Workflow - Users had select from a long list of choices that was hard to scan and very tedious to scroll through.
Cluttered Outdated UI - The old modal component was outdated and didn't match the new modern design system we were using.

Impact Highlights

Transformed a complex immigration application experience into a streamlined one that accelerated safety access for crime victims.
Through fast iteration and actionable research, we delivered a successful user-centric product ahead of schedule.
Under my leadership, I was able to inspire the client to implement the same level of strategic design thinking for other immigration applications.

Here's the whole story…

Issues to be Fixed

Inefficient Workflow - Users had select from a long list of choices that was hard to scan and very tedious to scroll through.
Cluttered Outdated UI - The old modal component was outdated and didn't match the new modern design system we were using.

Design Challenges

Development Timelines - To meet tight project timelines, the UX team leveraged existing React Beacon components for quicker delivery. We couldn't create new components.
Legal Constraints - Due to the nature of the project, we couldn’t simplify the choices using plain language. Choices had to match the lengthy legal language exactly.
Diverse User Feedback - Some users wanted to see all their options with none of them temporarily hidden in an collapsible accordion. Others only wanted to see options that they would use.

Our Process

We used a design process following Lean UX principles. Before jumping into ideation and prototyping, we first reached out to users to understand the problem and researched best practices as well as explored what we could utilize in our existing design system.

I brainstormed options and gathered feedback from other designers and developers on my team. With two solid options that received developer buy-in, I presented the options to the main user group to get their input and preferences.

a black cellphone with a white letter on it

Outcomes

The final form component was well received by developers and users. Since we involved the development team early in the process, feasibility and limitations were incorporated early on. Development of the component was accurate to the designs.

Using analytical data (New Relic), we measured our design impact.

With the new form component, time on task decreased by 39%.

Future Steps

Incorporate into design system - Add this new form component into our design system so that it can be used on other applicable projects.
Leverage AI - AI can make personalized suggestions based on previous selections and behavior. Instead of showing a long list of selections, AI could predict and surface the most relevant options for that user.

Outcomes

Using analytical data (New Relic), we measured our design impact.

With the new form component, time on task decreased by 39%.

Future Steps

Incorporate into design system - Add this new form component into our design system so that it can be used on other applicable projects.
Leverage AI - AI can make personalized suggestions based on previous selections and behavior. Instead of showing a long list of selections, AI could predict and surface the most relevant options for that user.