U.S Census Bureau
Designing various screens for enhanced user experience and facilitating user workflow for employees
The United States Census Bureau is leveraging emerging technologies to best protect its workers during census-taking. With over 500,00 field employees working during the decennial census, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and Virtual Assistants, can aid employees for the U.S. Census Bureau with easier time filing claims for injuries or accidents while on the job.
I was tasked with three deliverables during this design sprint: prototyping of the safety flow screens of the app (“happy path”), designing mockups for its insurance upload process in an effort to facilitate the user workflow, and designing mockups of its supervisor screens for its desktop site.
This service is now currently available for U.S. Census Bureau employees.
Summary
Project Overview
Role
UX Designer
Timeframe
4 months
The Work
UI design & rapid prototyping
Met deliverable deadlines
App currently available for employees
The Outcome
Deliverables
Mockups & prototype
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I was briefed on the project as I jumped in the middle of the design phase. This involved understanding the problem with the search bar for the supervisor screen, insurance file upload design and user flow for mobile, and prototyping the safety flow screens to be looked at by developers.
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During the research phase I compared various insurance companies’ mobile app designs and user experience of their mobile upload, as well as explored different ideas for the supervisor screen search bar.
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Design of hi-fi wireframes and prototyping are completed and ready for handoff.
The Process
Problem Identification
Understand & Research
First order of business was to design high-fidelity wireframes and user flow of the supervisor screen’s search bar. The UX design lead briefed me on the issue of whether the search bar should be hidden or not hidden. The search was not to compromise the visibility of the menu tabs to the left. Stakeholders requested the menu on the left to be kept and for the search bar not to interfere with that. I created 2 wifreframes to help facilitate users in this.
Second, I was tasked with improving the user flow of the insurance file upload screen. This involved researching other companies for inspiration.
Lastly, I created a rapid prototype of the Incident Reporting screen that would be shown to developers to showcase the current process of the design phase and to get an idea what the app may look like once launched.
I jumped in this project half-way through the design phase and was tasked with 3 small deliverables with the prototype being praised by the UX design lead
Development & Handoff
Rapid Prototyping and Wireframing
Rapid Prototyping
Creating the rapid prototype of the Incident Reporting mobile screens became a priority to show developers the status of the design phase. I was tasked with a 1—week deadline to learn Axure and create the rapid prototype. I successfully created the prototype and was met well by the UX design lead and developers.
Axure
Functional Interactions: 9-1-1 interactive button, month/day/year selection, time selection, interactive forms, incident dropdown menu selection.
Wifreframing
First high-fidelity wireframing task was to design simpler search bar options as the team could not decide on this feature without compromising the menu tabs to the left of the search bar.
Original Wireframe
My Wireframe
Original design (first image) was not able to fit the detailed menu tab labels and only had room for 3. My design (second image) was able to include the full label names with the search bar moved to the top right corner.
It was important for the stakeholders to have the following labels: ALL INCIDENTS, OVERNIGHT HOSPITALIZATIONS & FATALITIES, and 9-1—1 CALLS.
Second order of business was to design a simple user flow of the insurance claim file upload screens. These designs were to be shown to developers and stakeholders to showcase the status of the design phase.
Original Wireframe
My Wireframe
Original design had several UI concerns (Incident List and missing details in the initial file upload screen) that would cause user confusion. I redesigned the initial upload screen and added microcopy of file/image sizing as well as a reference number to each claim as a placeholder.
Done! My wireframes were ready for handoff.
Below are my following takeaways:
Final Thoughts
Although this was a simple project, it was great to dive my hands into the government and insurance industry sector of UX and UI design. There were a few fun images in the initial onboarding screen but this project taught me to stay empathetic to users who use this product as many certainly get injured while on the job.
A rookie misstep was that I did not use enough user insights—asking questions is key!
This project entailed more UI skill use and helped me grow in the UI portion of UX
Learning new software is possible and I will keep an open mind to adding new tools to my UX toolbelt. This let me know that I can take on a challenge and complete it
I also learned that rapid prototyping can happen even early on in the design process during a design sprint and can be helpful for developers.
Microcopy serves to guide the user through the interface