SmartCheck

Concept / UX / UI / Responsive web / User testing / CSS / Copywriting

Background reports are confusing, boring, and maybe a little creepy. And really, most people don’t want that much info. (What’s a property lien, anyway?) Let’s make something that anyone could find useful, no matter how much or little information they need. And let’s make it mobile-first. (!)

My role

I was the sole designer on this project from inception to launch, crafting the entire experience and visual presentation in collaboration with the project manager, the development team, and input from the marketing team.
 

› “Blue sky” ideation and Refining

Because this project started as an experiment to see how I might re-envision background reports, I was able to explore a variety of ideas with few limitations. With feedback and guidance from members of the product and marketing teams, we identified a solution that we were all excited about.
 

› Designing an experience

I crafted an experience that presented data and helpful insights to the user in a careful, progressive, and intentional manner, avoiding a “data dump” of text that users would have to sift through.
 

› Remote user testing

I used usertesting.com to test the new designs with real people. Running the same test using the old and new versions of background reports, these tests helped me determine if the new structure of the report made sense. After a few rounds of tests, I felt confident that users were more comfortable with the new presentation than the old background reports.
 

› Defining a Responsive system

I created a visual system – colors, spacing, dynamic content treatments, and more for mobile, desktop, and tablet – that provided developers with specific and predictable direction on how to display information throughout the site. After a short meeting to explain some of the finer points, the dev team was able to take the initial designs and move quickly through the front-end work with very few questions or clarifications. (There was also a clear enthusiasm from the dev team for working with a system that drastically reduced their questions and uncertainty. Win!)
 

› Design QA

As the dev team constructed the site, I provided direction on visual and UX bugs, including specific CSS and HTML direction whenever possible.

The challenge

This project started as an experiment. “How would you completely redesign background reports to answer two questions: is this person who they say they are? and should I be concerned about them?” Additionally, how would I make this usable to someone doing a quick check on their phone?

If you’ve ever looked at a background report, you know that last part is no small feat. Reports are filled with pages and lines of indecipherable public records content. How could we reduce that to something that would be digestible in a “quick glance” at your phone?

The approach

One of the primary use cases for the “new background report” was a parent looking up a new coach for their child. “Is this person who they say they are? Should I be concerned about them?” What could we show them in a single mobile display that would answer those questions but also allow them to dig deeper if necessary?

The solution was a “main profile” page that provided high-level contact info and summaries of a person’s criminal and financial history. We needed to tell this person’s story in a single page so the user could make a decision – yes/no, pass/fail, trust/don’t trust.

Part of telling a person’s story was providing helpful insights and a point of view instead of lines of data. For instance, if they had a criminal incident 20 years ago, maybe that doesn’t need to be highlighted. But if it was a violent crime or if it happened 5 months ago, that may deserve more emphasis. This led to descriptive “tags” at the top of a profile and various insights throughout the main profile page. Introducing a point of view regarding the data (albeit a very careful and intentional one) is a major differentiator between SmartCheck and any other background report product.

From the main profile, the user can dig into categories of background information in increasing levels of detail. We had heard from users that seeing too much specific information made them feel “creepy,” so breaking the information into these levels ensured that users would only see as much information as they felt comfortable with.

The process

This project piggybacked off of a hackathon project I had worked on a few months before. The hackathon version was dating-focused mobile app but I had a similar goal for it: crunch our available data and output something more insightful and illuminating so that a user could make a quick-but-informed decision about safety and trust.

From there I defined a hub-and-spoke structure where users could dig down and back up through silos of data. At the same time, I also began to define what insights and tags users might find helpful and illuminating. These were later refined with the PMs and input from the legal and marketing teams.

I ran a short series of remote user tests to refine the UI and make sure I was on the right track regarding the information structure and navigation and adjust accordingly.

Once the general style and experience had been defined mobile, I expanded it to a desktop experience and then a tablet experience.

The outcome

› SmartCheck has become a significant product offering in the Whitepages ecosystem.

› Feedback indicated that it is a better experience for users than a common background report.

› SmartCheck was added as a feature within the Whitepages mobile app.