UX in forms: Improving the Construction Workers Experience

Project Description:

This study had the Client Experience Branch at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Their main concern has been the increasing number of permanent residency applications being rejected as they are either incorrectly filled or are incomplete. Our research’s objective was to address these concerns by applying human-centred design principles to develop insights and recommendations that can reduce the rate of rejections for the applications and serve users with improved client services. In our case, we evaluated the temporary public policy for Out-of-Status construction workers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Our research question was: How might we improve the user experience of the application package?

The first phase of this project involved exploring the public policy through a subject matter experts (SME) focus group. The panel was conducted through an online meeting platform where IRCC officers clarified the program and internal processes. The next step consisted of a cognitive walkthrough of the forms and a heuristics analysis to evaluate the forms’ content and identify initial issues.

For the second phase of the project, our focus was to collect insights from real users and SMEs. Since the target audience was out-of-status workers, due to ethical issues, we could not contact them. Then we used an alternative plan of recruiting generic users with specific characteristics. We used the method of thematic coding to identify common themes among interviewees’ answers. With all the similar themes identified and segmented into groups of ideas, we did sensemaking activities for ideation and incorporated that information into our knowledge on design principles. Then, we analyzed the collected data and constructed recommendations from short to long-term on possible ways of optimizing the form’s user experience.

We identified technical problems related to the forms’ pdf format, issues with clarification on the forms, and the lack of error messages. Our data and interviews indicate that the form language should be kept short, simple and accessible. Both the guide and the form should have a clear structure and hierarchy.

Short Term
– Provide clear instructions in the forms
– Reducing mistakes by providing error messages
– Changing the layout of the table of content of the guide

Medium Term
– Chatbot for quick assistance
– Short-video content for a quick tutorial
– Adding section/tabs in the guide to organize the information better
– Change the preview message to properly instruct the user to open the form

Long Term
– App to gather information and fill out the form automatically
– Making forms device friendly
– Biometric/facial recognition for security purposes
– Using technology to create interactions within the guide and the forms

Based on our findings, the theory that guides this research is that a user-centred approach should be taken in all research and services phases. The literature review, SME interviews, and data collected from users indicated that it is crucial to understand the user’s needs to improve the user experience.

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