Summary
This was creating a brand new self service portal from the ground up rather than improving on an existing platform.
This was creating a brand new self service portal from the ground up rather than improving on an existing platform. This case study is a snapshot of the key parts of the WorkSafe launched a new Self-service Portal for customers to apply for their certificate of compliance (CoC) online through WorkSafe’s website. In hopes to increase efficiency, gain insights, and provide a better experience for both internal teams and customers.
UX Design was an important part in ensuring the creation and journey from start to finish had a design lens to guide the product in ensuring it meets it’s users needs and has positive impacts on WorkSafe's mission to help get New Zealanders home safe.
Problem
WorkSafe has been broken off from MBIE for over 5 years but was yet to have an online self service portal of their own. The current system in place was very paper based, email was the extent of an online presence and it was highly reliant on personal relationships.
There were other issue that needed to be addressed:
- Siloed – Operating in isolation and unable to share data or learnings.
- Manual processes – Large amounts of paperwork and time taken to process applications and notifications.
- Assistance dependency – People needing to post things or phone to complete some applications.
- Business focused – Being internally facing.
- Reactive – Without insights and the ability to see ahead we were often caught on the backfoot and operating “just in time”.
Solution
To move away from this paper based service WorkSafe wanted to stand up their own digital platform that enables self service, creating a better experience for the users needing to use the services provided by WorkSafe. This would become a self service portal where the users can do a range of actions, including: Applications, notifications, change and update personal details and apply on behalf of a person or business. Using Dynamics 365 as the development platform to reduce development time.
Rather than have a bespoke application that has to be build from the ground up, it was decided to leverage the Dynamics 365 platform and have out of the box functionality do the heavy lifting. Tweaking functionality where needed. This speeds up development and function delivery times.
Ways of working
Collaborating closely with my team, we embraced an agile approach to project development, a methodology that prioritises flexibility, collaboration, and iterative progress. Our workflow was structured around Agile principles, ensuring that our development process was dynamic and responsive to changing requirements. We held regular sprint planning sessions, dividing the project into manageable increments, or sprints, each typically lasting two to three weeks.
During these sprints, we conducted daily stand-up meetings to foster open communication and provide quick updates on individual and team progress. This allowed us to promptly address any challenges, adapt to new insights, and ensure continuous alignment with project goals.
Our use of agile methodologies extended to the implementation of Scrum practices, facilitating efficient task management and visualising our workflow. This approach not only promoted teamwork but also enhanced our ability to prioritise tasks based on their importance and impact.
We regularly engaged stakeholders, including end-users, to gather feedback on the features we were developing. This iterative feedback loop enabled us to make adjustments promptly, ensuring that the final product met the evolving needs and expectations of our users.
Design process
Design system
When I joined WorkSafe there was a Design System that had already been stood up. This included all the basics such as buttons, navigation, footer etc components and your basic setup materials such as spacing and typography. I did an audit to look at what is currently there and what is needed. One opportunity for improvement I found was to convert all the components to use auto-layout since that functionality was there in Figma but our current Design System was using rectangles as spacing. This made consistency of spacing and making changes to spacing a lot quicker and efficient. As well as this, I changed the structure of the Design System and added a roadmap to fill in gaps that we had and a way of introducing new components.
The design system streamlined time taken to create concepts, Mockups for developers and created consistency across all our designs.
Design thinking
Competitor analysis was done to see what current self service portals there were so the team could improvement opportunities where there were shortfalls. IRD and WorkSafe Victoria giving great insights for a starting point.
Flow maps, wireframes or mockups were created for visual communication to work through concepts for new features or changes being made to existing ones as the team moved to develop feature to feature.
Log-in options had to be mapped out extensively because WorkSafe does not have a call center. The goal was to piggyback off existing log-in mechanisms with established service support. This process involved multiple iterations, initially considering social media log-ins and ultimately settling on RealMe as the user registration method.
Team collaboration
I was involved in early discussions for how this self service portal would be put together with design, development and business considerations. Miro being used as a way to capture design thinking and creating artefacts such as flow maps, notes, issues.
Handoffs
Once features, problem statements were created, mockups in Figma were put together to be reviewed and discussed with developers if there were any constraints on there end, before being handed off to develop the designs.
Problem solving
Constraints within the Microsoft dynamics 365 environment meant there was always a trade off between using out of the box functionality while maintaining a positive user experience. Custom solutions were available as an option but to be used as minimal as possible as it required a lot more dev resource and there was a risk of future microsoft updated breaking the custom solutions.
Benefits
Users of the self service portal can now fill out forms for an application or notification online, there is less friction and time saving for the user with basic details being auto filled, a small design change that saves a lot of time over the course of many forms filled out.RealMe linked profile so users can now use existing log in and get support provided by RealMe. RealMe verified is also on it’s way where users can skip proof of identity stepsUsers now have a profile they can manage themselves, this includes name change requests and changing the email they get notifications sent to form WorkSafe.
