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Report Center UI

The Report Center is a crucial piece of software which employees, agents, and policyholders would utilize to find the reports relevant to past and ongoing claims. The site had out of date filters and a lack of backwards navigation that caused users to become soft-locked in the workflow, unable to navigate beyond a certain point, or select multiple filters relevant to their search query. This redesign began with an ideation phase that defined the needs of the users, identified where in the existing design those needs were not being met, and identified possible solutions in the redesign for these opportunity areas. From there, a first draft was created and sent for feedback. Based on feedback and additional brainstorming, multiple drafts were created before the final version was submitted and presented in front of several department heads and stakeholders in the Report Center rework. The redesign received positive feedback, and has since slowly been implemented in design updates piece by piece. <br> *Please note for sake of client confidentiality, imagery and documents containing sensitive information may not be viewable to the public.

Summary

Summary: The Report Center is a crucial piece of software which employees, agents, and policyholders would utilize to find the reports relevant to past and ongoing claims. The site had out of date filters and a lack of backwards navigation that caused users to become soft-locked in the workflow, unable to navigate beyond a certain point, or select multiple filters relevant to their search query. This redesign began with an ideation phase that defined the needs of the users, identified where in the existing design those needs were not being met, and identified possible solutions in the redesign for these opportunity areas. From there, a first draft was created and sent for feedback. Based on feedback and additional brainstorming, multiple drafts were created before the final version was submitted and presented in front of several department heads and stakeholders in the Report Center rework. The redesign received positive feedback, and has since slowly been implemented in design updates piece by piece. <br> *Please note for sake of client confidentiality, imagery and documents containing sensitive information may not be viewable to the public.

Defining Goals

The defining goals of the project were as follows:

Work alongside the existing state of the report center to keep it familiar. The report center was part of workflows and was relatively untouched for years; sudden change could negatively affect those who have grown accustomed to the current site.
Introduce easy, forward and backward navigation. The current state of the navigation does not allow backwards movement, and in order to go back, the user must cancel the entire filter process and start over. Once a report is pulled, they cannot search for a new one.
There are two categories of filters: regular filters, and advanced filters. The advanced filters are not visible or accessible unless the first filters are filled out; this prevents users from knowing what additional filters there are. The design must remove that wall, while also preventing users from filling out some of the filters that have a prerequisite value within the prior filters.

Ideation and First Drafts

In order to begin the first draft, I started an ideas board within the company OneNote to gather ideas and match them with their opportunity areas. Here, I brainstormed potential solutions to the identified areas of conflict. I kept a list of the requirements next to where my brainstorming was written down, and beside these were idea sketches and other notes regarding the first drafts.

The first few drafts were low fidelity wireframes drawn on paper, which I then made a quick sketch of in Figma. This sketch would be developed into medium and high fidelity mockups, and eventually to the final draft.

In the wireframe process, I chose to illustrate the different stages of navigation - the landing, filtering pages, the loading process between the submission and the report fetch, and the viewing and download page. These would articulate not only the improved thinking behind the navigation flow, but provide easy access and understanding of every stage within the existing process.

Prototyping and Feedback

In the first few drafts, the proposal consisted of ten frames and eight user contact points within those frames; this was a little too much for the quick process users were used to and expecting. We decided to condense the multiple-pages of filters onto one page, lessening the amount of pages a user would have to go through, and allowing the additional filters to remain a choice rather than a forced stage the user must navigate through.

Verbal feedback given after being shown and asked to visually navigate the initial designs were taken from those both involved and uninvolved in the project, and then reworked or considered in what would become the final draft of the design.

Final Draft

The Final Draft featured additional adjustments, such as a way to view loading progress, and an option to clear the search and locate another document. Colors were added to build resembelance to the original brand, and help distinguish certain options better. Additional stages were added for particular workflow processes - interfaces were later added for back-end employee usage and user/client management.

Additionally, before finalizing, all elements of the design were checked to comply with WCAG Guidelines and digital accessibility standard.

Pitch and Reception

The final pitch of the redesign went successfully. Presented to a meeting of 20 or so individuals across different departments, feedback was varied and largely positive. Additional feedback regarding individual departments' workflow, as well as suggestions for adaptations from the original design to the new design were offered by participants and applied to the design in future updates to the report center.

Because of the scope of the report center as a resource, completely replacing it immediately with a new application wasn't an option; instead, small pieces of the design have made slow transformations on the current and future updates of the report center. Follow up meetings were conducted biweekly to gain extra feedback on the design and to offer developers feedback throughout implementations.