A prospective redesign of the Oregon DMV appointment-booking experience.
Booking an appointment using the Oregon DMV website on a mobile device was confusing and frustrating for residents. My research found several pain points:
By improving the appointment-booking experience, there’s potential to decrease the volume of calls to the Oregon DMV help desk.
After running usability tests on the current design and conducting a comparative analysis of other appointment-booking experiences, I simplified the design in an effort to maximize clarity and minimize any chance of overwhelming the user. Here are a couple ways I accomplished this goal.
To reduce users’ cognitive load, I simplified the location-selection page to only a search bar instead of a long list of radio-button options.
To save both the users’ time and DMV staff time, I made users aware of the required documents needed to get a REAL ID before booking an appointment.
After testing my first prototype, I found that older users were looking for explicit copy stating that the appointment details will be emailed to the user and “you are done.”
The majority of my design decisions are grounded in the insights I gathered from my comparative research and two usability tests.
In addition to other DMV mobile websites, I comparatively analyzed these three appointment-booking experiences because they share common target users, user goals, and business goals.
I identified the strengths and weaknesses of each experience, so that I could refer back to them for inspiration and “what not to do” later in my design process.
Additionally, I conducted a usability test with participants to evaluate the pain points and strengths of the DMV’s current design.
Then I transferred my usability test notes to digital post-its and placed them on the appropriate screens to reveal places of high user frustration or error.
This served as a “heat map” of pain points.
After designing a high-fidelity prototype in Figma, I conducted usability tests on five participants and identified areas of improvement for my second iteration.
For example, initially I had “review appointment” at the bottom of the personal details page.
After testing my first prototype, I found that older users were looking for explicit copy stating that the appointment details will be emailed to the user and “you are done.”
Multiple rounds of usability testing with participants ages 20 to 60 improved my designs with each iteration. I also learned that older users prefer straightforward copy that clearly indicates when no further action is necessary. Younger users did not need explicit copy to tell them “you are done” in order they’ve successfully completed their task.
