Objective
My team and I were hired to work for Legal Pilot to design an easy and streamlined way to help employers and employees with the work visa application process. We are attempting to create the main structure and function of this new feature within a 3 week sprint.
My RolE
Wireframe Lead, Research and Interaction Designer
Conducted competitive analysis and industry research
Conducted user interviews and usability testing
Created Personas
Finalized user flow
Built wireframes
Collaborated on High Fidelity Wireframes
Tools
Figma
The Problem
Foreign Nationals and American companies need a way to easily navigate the complicated and expensive visa application process.
Thousands of people across the world are applying for work visas to try and come to work within the U.S.. The issue is that many startup businesses looking to hire talent from out of the country as well as people looking to apply within the U.S. for the first time have difficulty knowing what the Visa application process actually entails. This causes many businesses to miss out on amazing talent from across the globe and many people to miss out on jobs that could greatly benefit their careers.
The questions we are trying to answer are as follows.
How do we create an easy, cost effective and efficient way for businesses to learn about the visa application process?
How can we help individuals from all over the world streamline and keep track of their visa application progress?
The Solution
We aim to create a collaborative platform that …
Automates the process - through guided questions, error prevention, autosaving information and notifications.
Lowers the cost - By reducing attorney workload
Adds Transparency - Between all parties involved with visual timelines, status updated, real time chat and notifications
Step 1: Research
When we began this process we had no idea about what the visa application process entailed. There are currently over 185 visa options for the U.S. even with the smaller scope of our client focusing on workplace nonimmigrant visas this left us with a lot to look into. In order to get the best idea of what our users needed from us we implemented several different methods when conducting research for this project.
User Interviews: We interviewed a total of 6 people who have each played a role in the visa application process before. We spoke with 1 employer, 3 employees and 2 experts in the field. During this process we were able to find out what they each found difficult and confusing about the current process.
Some of the important things that we learned from this was that many people had a difficult time understanding the confusing language on the government websites. Others simply wanted a way to see their progress throughout the process. However the main thing that we took away from speaking with everyone is that everyone’s experience is different.
Surveys: We created 2 different surveys to distribute, one for employees who have gone through the visa process and one for employers. We sent out the surveys on several social media platforms and came to realize that the subject of immigration was much to personal of a topic to gather information in such an impersonal manner. After 3 days we only received 1 response on each of the surveys. We decided to pursue a different method of collecting research.
Educational resources: The main sources of information that we used during this project were the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) website and a book that our stakeholders provided us called U.S. Immigration Made Easy. These two sources were invaluable as they provided us with accurate information about the application process.
Product Demos: We attempted to set up demos for competitors products that already existed, however by doing this we came to realize many of the products that are out there currently are very basic and require tons of work behind the scenes. We were unable to do a demo without the assistance of someone directly from the company, so this method of research proved ineffective.
Comparative Analysis: For this we looked at companies that are known for teaching difficult concepts in an easy to follow way such as Turbotax and Duolingo.
Competitive Analysis:
Personas
Based on our users needs and the interviews we conducted we created 2 personas. Our first persona was from the viewpoint of the employer(Harrison) while the second was from the employee’s(Aarav).
Design process
We began our design process by using the websites that we conducted our comparative analysis on. We wanted to see how sites like Turbotax and applications like Duolingo were able to go about teaching complicated topics such as taxes and language to people in an easy to digest manner. From there we began sketching what we thought we wanted our process to look like.
Based on these sketches we began to do low fidelity wireframes within Figma. We used this first round of wireframes to conduct usability testing so that we could make improvements on our design. Overall we wound up doing 3 rounds of usability testing before deciding on our current design. Below you can see the iterations that we went through on several of our most important pages. During this short time we chose to focus our efforts on making a design that was scalable so that our clients would be able to implement what we had created in the future for use on all visa applications.
The following are the changes that we made to each screen based on our usability test results.
The Visa info screen:
From our very first design to the current one we made several changes, from the first screen to the second we expanded upon the information that was shown. Many of our users requested that a timeline for the process be shown on the screen for added transparency.
From the second to third screen we added in a section about what they should do after the visa application was approved, we added this so that while they were waiting to get their results they had something that they could be preparing for.
From the third screen to the final screen we included even more information such as application fees and the fact that the employee is able to apply for a green card while on this visa. We also improved the visuals for the timeline.
Process Overview screen:
The first screen we made was based off of the user flow from Turbotax. However in this scenario our users found it confusing and wanted something that would allow them to see what they had completed and what still needs to be done.
The second screen now shows the steps spread out and shows their completion percentage on each step. While our next round of testing showed that this was an improvement from the first screen there was still some confusion about the layout of the page.
The third screen now shows a cleaner layout with new formatting for each section. We brought the “in progress” steps to the top so they would be the main focus point of the page and put the “completed” steps at the bottom so that the user would not have to look at them every time they went to this page.
Documents Screen:
The first time we designed this screen we tried to make it similar to an inbox, with the title of the document and a quick reference image of the document on the right of the screen. However after doing more research and usability testing we came to see that our initial design was not the most effective for this process.
Moving onto the second screen we changed the layout entirely and provided sub categories for each document type. We found that this layout was more favorable to our users, however there was some confusion on the sub category titles.
For the third iteration we added in info icons next to each of the sub categories that would allow the users to gain more information about each section if they had any additional questions. In our current iteration we have applied the style guide and prepared it for delivery.
Prototype
After all of our testing had been completed, it was time for us to create out final prototype. Below you will find a video walking through the two different portals that we created. The first one will be from the perspective of the employer (Harrison) and the second will be the employees(Aarav).
Employer Onboarding Process Demo
Knowledge Gained
From this process we were able to learn a great deal about what people have to go through during the visa application process. We began this project knowing nothing of the visa process but were able to gather invaluable information by talking to people who had gone through this process first hand. Through usability testing and interviews with these people we strived to create the best way to make the complex process simple.
In the future we hope to see this design put to good use in helping people all over the world work towards their goals.