Responsive Web Application
My Role: UX Designer
Transamerica’s Workplace Experience for Employers is designed for companies who offer Transamerica products (such as 401k and 403b retirement plans) to their employees. It is a portal for plan sponsors (for example, a Benefits/HR specialist at Coca-Cola) to manage their employees’ plans and help answer employee questions about their retirement plans.
The Workplace Experience team is tasked with replacing and redesigning the old portal, which was originally built about 20 years ago.
I was the primary designer on the Secure File Transfer feature, which allows plan sponsors and their Transamerica contacts to securely send documents with sensitive personal information without the security risks of sending via email.
The design team collaborated together for the discovery phase of this feature. First, we spoke with subject matter experts of the existing File Transfer feature to understand and document all of the functionality of this feature.
Next, we conducted user interviews with current users to understand how they use the File Transfer feature, what they liked about it, and what their pain points were.
We learned the following information:
From this information, we created journey maps and user flows to document the flow and any opportunities for improvement.
Our goal with the redesign was to create a streamlined File Transfer experience that minimized users’ pain points without taking away what users currently liked about their experience.
After a few rounds of sketching and brainstorming, the team decided to move forward with a “file inbox” concept where users could view all of the files they had sent and received. The Gmail inbox was one of our inspirations. We combined the 2 Send File flows into one so all users had the same experience regardless of whether they were internal Transamerica employees or external plan sponsors. Depending on the user type, there were some small UI modifications, but it was still the same flow for all users.
After the initial team collaboration, I was responsible for iterating on the sketches and wireframes and delivering the high fidelity designs. My approach was to keep elements that users of the current experience liked and were used to while streamlining the process and removing anything that wasn’t necessary.
The first high fidelity version was put through a round of usability testing. It was tested with 8 users who were asked to complete a few basic tasks, such as sending a file, viewing a file, and locating a file in a specific category.
The 2 big takeaways were that users were able to view and send files without any issues. However, they did not grasp the “file inbox” concept with the “Sent Files” and “Received Files” tabs. Instead, they were looking at the “Recipients” column to see whether a file was sent or received.
In my next round of iterations, I removed the “Sent Files” and “Received Files” tabs and combined the two into one screen. There were filtering and sorting options, as well as a search function, to help users locate files easily.
Any of the associated actions for a file were put into an overflow menu to create more room in the table.
The File transfer details were put in a modal so users could easily scan file details without leaving the page.
The Send File steps were designed to be streamlined and vertical to keep the user focused on the task at hand and keep moving through the flow without distractions. The most complicated step “Select Recipients,” was put in a modal to simplify the interface. The stepper component was designed to be helpful in orienting the user to the current step in the process.
As part of the redesign, I paid special attention to the events messaging and notifications, making sure it was clear to the user what was happening and what to expect next.
I worked with the front end developers and back end architects to understand exactly what was happening behind the scenes of a file transfer to ensure that the messaging to the user was accurate, but didn’t burden them with what was going on behind the scenes.
For example, there is still a virus scan that could take up to 15 minutes for each file. It didn’t make sense to make the user wait until the virus scan was completed or to make them think this file transfer was instant. So, the wording of the success confirmation modal at the end of the Send File process was carefully worded to reflect this.
Last, but not least, the email notifications that the sender or receiver was also considered part of the user experience. The language of the current notifications were very systematic and did not look professional or up-to-date. I worked within the technical limitations of the email notification systems to create a message that was meant for a human to understand and followed the Transamerica branded email template.
