The MVA consistently rejects new drivers from taking their Learner's Permit test even though they have an appointment.
There is inconsistent messaging from the MVA (many states have the DMV instead) regarding which documentation is required. Thus many users bring incorrect documentation and are not allowed to even attempt their permit test.
I re-organized the user journey to allow users to complete their document submission requirements online, prior to coming in for their appointment. Thus avoiding the issue entirely.
The result is a high fidelity prototype that covers the journey of a new driver attempting the Learner's Permit test for the first time.
I lead the entire project from generative research through usability testing the high fidelity prototype.
My research goal was to define the user journey of a new driver going for their permit.
I conducted COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS by looking at Maryland, New York, and California’s DMV sites.
Then, I conducted USER INTERVIEWS. I interviewed 5 former MVA users.
I Affinity Mapped my findings categorized by stages of the user journey.
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Link To Zoomable Affinity MapI had three main take-aways from the research:
The two personas involved in the acquiring a Learner's Permit task are a teenager (Josh) and their parent (Matt)
Although much of what I've learned during my user research interviews are universal to both personas, the nuances between them come to light later when I converge on a solution. As the parent has a few supplementary goals, and is less fluent with technology.
I reduced (to borrow the cooking term) everything I learned about Maryland new drivers into questions that state the opportunities for improvement within their MVA experience.
How might we decrease the number of times a person need to come into an MVA office?
How might we increase the success rate of document submissions?
How might we decrease the stressfulness of waiting at the MVA?
My design is intended to be a solution to these questions. In a sort of Jeopardy style these questions are a great rubric for my design.
Of the two primary issues I discovered (long wait times and the issues with submitting documents) I decided that the document submission issues would be the most feasible to tackle. As the waiting issues are largely dependent on each individual branch.
The primary constraint of any solution was that I couldn't adjust which documents the MVA required. I had many solution ideas, these are the best:
My first thought was to just update the MVA's website's information. Giving the users the correct information about what to bring would lead to successful appointments.
The documents needed for getting a permit are government issued (ex: Social Security Card, Birth Certificate). So when a document is initially issued, the MVA could receive a copy and issue it to the user's "account". Then when a user wants get their permit they would merely need to scan their fingerprint to identify themselves.
We could enable users to submit their documents online, prior to their submission.
I decide that the "Online Submissions" solution would be the best to pursue. It balances properly addressing the issues I heard from users while at the same time being reasonably feasible to execute.
The next step was for me to "zoom in" and sort out what this idea would look like practically. I started by establishing the app's user stories:
Link To Zoomable User Stories PageI then took a more granular look at the app's primary user journey. I wanted to answer more questions such as:
The primary user journey is a new driver signing up for his permit test. The journey begins with him learning what he needs to do to get a permit and it concludes with him showing up for his permit test appointment.
Link To Zoomable Primary User JourneyIt was time to turn my idea into an actual app! I started by sketching some of the main pages. I did some physical sketching, but I ended up doing most of the low fidelity work in Figma.
In my high fidelity design I was able to eliminate the need for this stand-alone account page.
The task based navigation I drew up here is very similar to what I used in the final design.
These pages are the first render of the "Make Appointment" task flow.
Don't worry,
I got rid of this text wall :)
CTA to an MVA correspondance
Task-based navigation
I ran 5 usability tests. I asked each tester to complete the different tasks that I created the app to be able to do. The usabiliy test tasks included:
Have a look at the home-screen and tell me what you make of it: What strikes you about it?
Whose site do you think it is?
What can you do here?
Using the app, identify what a new driver needs to do to get a permit.
You want to get started on your son's application. Enter his preliminary information.
The results were good news; from the macro view the app worked well! But there were definetly usability issues to clean up.
- Quote from my usability test report
I started creating the UI by perfecting a couple of the main screens of the app. Then, knowing that the colors, font etc... worked cohesively, I went back to create the style guide.
The app's color scheme was chosen to satisfy two main factors:
I chose the colors to represent the brand attributes of friendly yet important. I also wanted the app to feel like the official documents that the users would be submitting with it.
Color contrast standards were the other influence on the colors I chose to use in the app. Every color combination actually used in the app exceeds the WCAG's AA standard.
I tested 5 users and made iterations on what I found.
Again the results were really positive. At this point all of the issues were pretty minor and fixable with some UI changes.
With all that being said,
Go ahead and give it a try!
