Earnings Corrections System Redesign

PORTFOLIO

Overview

The goal of the Earnings Correction project was to modernize the current green screen system and replace it with a web-based application. Social Security Administration Technicians use the Earnings Corrections system to correct number holder earnings including: adding missing earnings, correcting discrepant earnings, removing earnings that don’t belong to the number holder, etc.

My Role

Lead UX Designer

UX Process

I was assigned another project before design could begin but I lead the initial stages of discovery which included:

Product Discovery
User Discovery Interviews

The Problem

The UX team conducted two rounds of interviews with SSA Technicians that are responsible for earnings corrections using the green screen system. Interviews were conducted in a one-to-one setting to learn about the current process, user pain points, needs, and visions for a new application.

Goals of user interviews were to:

Validate and learn more about the “as is” process
Identify steps in the current process to resolve earnings discrepancies
Inform future decisions regarding the new Earnings Correction application

Common pain points, challenges or limitations with the current system that we identified included:

No visual appeal (green screen)
It's not intuitive (if not used regularly, cheat sheets and user guides must be referred to)
Complicated process with multiple steps involved
Lots of going back and forth between screens
Number holder information must be manually typed in instead of auto-populating from SSA data
Updating a number holder’s earnings record is a batch process that runs overnight instead of an immediate update

A few golden quotes we heard from users:

“Earnings is the cornerstone of the agency as a whole. If earnings are adjusted, it could mean the person is entitled to more, or less, money. It’s important to be accurate because it’s someone’s livelihood on the line.”

“The [current] system is antiquated and hard to use. I’d like to see something that when you come in it asks, what do you want to do? Do you want to add earning, change earnings, remove earnings. Start there.”

"Multiple places where info is being controlled in order to do things. Would like more of a one-stop shop so no matter who needs to make an adjustment for their particular workload that it’s taking place in one location.”

UX Deliverables

User Personas

We were able to utilize one persona, John, previously created for the Earnings Queries project. The team also created a second persona, Julie, using data obtained during user interviews. Earnings Corrections Personas

Journey Maps

We also mapped out the Corrections process to visually show the multiple steps and systems that are utilized during the process. I then designed journey maps depicting both a happy and unhappy paths to share with the team.

Happy and Unhappy Journey Maps