From Code to Canvas: A DMV's GUI Redesign
Government digital services seem to always be in need of a makeover, particularly the Department for Motor Vehicles. This case study explores a drastic transition from a command-line interface (CLI - think terminal) to a graphical user interface (GUI) for civilians and internal DMV employees.
Redesigning an interface for such ingrained procedures, such as renewing a drivers license or license plate, required us to evaluate the relationship between policy and process in order to shape the mechanism. This product design process incorporated structured but nimble research sprints to document current state and make decisions on the future state.
Role & responsibilities
Three designers were split across 3 sprint teams which were allocated to different high-level features. I worked hand-in-hand with a product owner and developers to gather requirements from stakeholders and SME’s.
Craft a future state journey based alleviating the pain points from the current state journey
Lead elaboration sessions with 50+ stakeholders and SME’s to expand upon story-level requirements
Proactively prototype the user stories with their established requirements as elaboration sessions were ongoing to accommodate a 3 week sprint cycle
Update and maintain the design system with any new or refined components
Facilitate design feedback sessions with 50+ stakeholders and SME’s for approval to go into concept testing
A nimble approach to research
A current state journey and future state based off defined pain-points were required deliverables for each user story. Between each major sprint cycle, the team conducted research on the stories slated for the upcoming sprints by mapping story flows to personas, interviewing and observing those who fall within the user group, and synthesizing the findings into high-level sentiments and a future state journey.
Requirements gathering & stakeholder engagement
Having the knowledge of how things are done and an avenue for process improvement visualized by the future state diagrams, once the sprint cycle restarted, the product owner and I spent the first two weeks leading elaboration sessions with 50+ stakeholders & SME’s. During these sessions, we presented the future states and determined the non-negotiable and nice-to-have attributes associated with the user story and proposed vision.
Prototyping & maintaining the design system
As we were collecting requirements during elaboration sessions, it was my responsibility to proactively mock up designs to prepare for two rounds of review cycles with stakeholders. These review cycles occurred during the last week of the sprint cycle with the goal of having the designs endorsed for future concept testing.
While there was an existing design system, the stories I was designing were net new, requiring design exploration and new components to be built and the library updated. Since this is a government system and WCAG compliant, strict accessibility guidelines had to be followed when creating new components.
What’s next?
An exciting accomplishment - this team was the only team to successfully gather requirements for all user stories in the sprint, map them in the BPD (Business Process Document), successfully conduct 2 rounds of client reviews, and get all designs endorsed for concept testing, all in 3 weeks while managing 50+ stakeholders. After 3 full sprint cycles (9 weeks), the next steps were as follows:
Concept testing with users for the user stories endorsed
Refinements of the designs and BPD based on concept testing results
Review cycles with stakeholders (after concept testing and usability testing)
Usability testing to measure task completion
Endorsement to send for development
