Project Summary

This project was for the Social Security Administration (SSA). The goal of the project was to modernize an old green screen application, Earnings Queries, and replace it with a new web-based application. SSA technicians use the Earnings Queries system to view and research customer and beneficiary earnings records. 

For example, if a customer wants to begin earning retirement benefits, an SSA technician must verify that they have the necessary work credits required to receive benefits using the Earnings Queries system. Another example is if a customer notices a discrepancy in their earnings record and reports it to SSA, such as a missing year or an incorrect earnings amount, an SSA technician uses Earnings Queries to research the customer’s work history to verify the error. 

This was an Agile project that included the Product Owner, SSA Lead, 2 UX specialists, analysts, developers, testers and scrum master.

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My Role

Lead UX Designer

UX Process

• Product Discovery

• User Interviews 

• Creation of conceptual models

• Validation of conceptual model via usability testing

• Analyze data obtained from usability testing of conceptual model; determine key findings

• Present findings and recommendations to the Agile team

• Agile Process initiated

  • Begin building the backlog 

  • Stories added for UX team to begin designing a functional prototype 

• Prototyping in Axure (see Project 2)

  • Iteration and refinement of design as needed

  • Additional usability testing as needed (on-going)

The Problem

The UX team conducted three rounds of discovery interviews with users (SSA Technicians) to discover why and when they use the Earnings Queries system, their likes and dislikes, pain points, and how it can be improved. A few of our findings included:

• There are five queries that SSA technicians can use to assist them with number holder claims or reported discrepancies. 

• Each query is a separate screen, which means the technicians must go back and forth between green screens, and change pages many times. They are not linked together.

• This becomes very cumbersome for the two queries that are used multiple times a day: Summary Earnings and Detail Earnings. 

  • Summary Earnings Query: A listing of earnings by year

  • Detail Earnings Query: Details of earnings by year including employer(s) information, and W2 information such as total wages, taxes paid, tips, Medicare, etc.

• Some query searches result in several pages of data but the current application can only display one small screen at a time. They are unable to see the "full picture."

• The screens of the green screen application are hard to read, and hard on the eyes.

• The layout of the data displayed on the screen is not well formatted, which makes it hard to interpret.

• Technicians must begin an entire new search if they want to change search parameters.

• Help is not available within the current green screens; the technician must go to the intranet if they need assistance