245D Consulting

245D Consulting is currently in the early stage of development and aims to bridge the gap between 245D licensing holders and prospective service providers by offering guidance throughout the pre-application process and maintaining licensed.

Overview:

Numerous of organization in the state of Minnesota is looking to provide services for individuals with disabilities and those of age 65 and older. In order to do so, they must hold an active 245D license; however, the application, approval process, and statue requirements can be complex and overwhelming. 245D Consulting is looking to fill the gap in supporting 245D applicants by guiding them through this process with the license holder.

245D Consulting wants to demystify the confusing application and licensing process and leverage design and digital capabilities to make it more accessible and easier to understand.

Solutions:

As a design team, I worked on creating a design strategy to assist 245D Consulting in appealing and connecting with service providers who are seeking to either obtain or maintain their licenses. Our approach involved envisioning potential growth opportunities with 245D Consulting with the focus on touchpoints that could improve the user experiences. Through this process, we aimed to educate users on what 245D consulting is, how to connect with the company, and how it can help them with the licensing application process.

Tools:

  • Zoom

  • Figma

  • Canva

  • Adobe

  • Notebook/Sketches

  • Pen and Pencil

Methods:

  • Kanban Method

  • Content Audit

  • Stakeholder Interview

  • Deep Dive Research

  • Guiding Statement Strategy

  • Touchpoint Strategy Map

  • Wireframes

  • Prototyping

Role:

UX Design & Research

Design Team:

  • Shadow Lee

  • Crystal Yang

  • Joel Jackson

  • Matt Berdahl

Explore proposed landing page

Explore proposed about page

What Exist

Discovery

As a design team, we first gathered and organized our collective knowledge about the company, as well as identifying gaps in our understanding and any assumptions we had made. This exercise allowed us to document our thoughts and better prepare for the interview by pinpointing areas of major uncertainty.

In the stakeholder interview itself, we were able to learn more about 245D Consulting’s goals and vision for the future. The insights I gained during this conversation ensured that I keep track on the right metrics to achieve in the project success.

I debrief with my design team after to move forward with our next steps.

Deep Dive

To gain deeper understanding of the problem space, my design team and I strategically thought of a plan to individually immerse ourselves into learning more about 245D Consultant’s mission and values. Through this, I was able to brainstorm the process development of the project, in particular, we focused on answering these questions:

  • "What exists in this space?"

  • "How well does it work?"

  • "What problems still exist?"

  • "What’s important to the audience members/decision makers/influencers?"

  • "Where/how are there opportunities to make a change to this experience?"

  • "Are there similar experiences to learn from?

Guiding Strategy Statement

All user experience touch-points for 245D Consulting will help providers feel support and/or enjoyment. So that they are able to understand and navigate the frustratingly complex process of becoming licensed. We will do this by focusing on education and empowerment. As a result we hope to see a change in the number of licenses completed and maintained.

My design team and I put together a touchpoint strategy map that outlines each interaction a user may have with 245D Consulting. This process looks at each step of the user’s journey and identify where and how users may interact with it.

Each member of the design team findings about 245D Consulting

Synthesizing our results together

TouchPoints

The goal of 245D Consulting is to make the process of becoming 245D licensed as simple and enjoyable as possible for service providers; therefore, we focused on touchpoint that users will be interacting with 245D Consulting. This will improve the user experience and identify what touchpoint will work and won’t work.

Once we identified the key touch points, my design team and I began shifting our focus towards envisioning future growth opportunities for 245D Consulting to connect and maintain service providers who are looking to become 245D licensed. To achieve this, each member took lead on 1-2 touch points. I focused on the “Engage Phase” and partnered with another member on the “Connect Phase.”

To start the design process, I began sketching low-fidelity wireframes that allowed me to explore different design ideas and concept. From there, I refined my sketches into higher fidelity wireframes the more accurately represented the proposed design. This allowed me to create a clear vision of the Engage Phase of the touchpoint strategy and work effectively with my design team to create a cohesive design approach.

The key purpose of this was to visually see how each touchpoint influence user’s perception of 245D Consulting and their overall experience to identify areas of improvement  and ensure alignment with 245D Consulting’s goals. By outlining every potential interaction, we were able to gain a comprehensive understanding of where and how users are connecting with 245 Consulting throughout their journey.

User’s journey with each interaction with 245D Consulting

My Work

Landing page - Sketched Wireframes

Landing Page - High Fidelity Wireframes

About page - Sketched Wireframes

About Page - High Fidelity Wireframes

Design Team’s Work

Joel’s Sketched Wireframes

Joel’s High Fidelity Wireframes

Crystal’s Sketched Wireframes

Crystal’s High Fidelity Wireframes. I included the workshops flyers

Challenges

I prioritize clear and effective communication among my design team about our chosen template, color schemes, and font selections. As I was responsible for designing the landing page, it was important for me to collaborate closely to ensure all of our work would integrate seamlessly. This involved identifying the placement for their design elements and aligning them with the touch point strategy map. Together, we were able to achieve our project goals.

Summary

To summarize our findings, my design team and I prepared a final package and presented it 245D Consulting. This package includes a video explaining all the touchpoints of the user experience and featured a narrative story to illustrate how a user would interact with the website. Additionally, I included annotation to the prototype that I have designed to provide a detailed visual representation of our design approach.

The final package was designed to provide a clear and compelling overview of our design process, as well as key insights and recommendation that emerged from our research and analysis. Through this, we were able to effectively communicate potential impact of our proposed design solutions.

Annotated - Home Page Recommendations

Annotated - About Page Recommendations

Key Takeaway

The strategy plan we developed for 245D Consulting was centered on enhancing the company’s future state and improving the user experience. Our emerging approach employed system thinking to ensure alignment with the company’s goals and the needs of its users. Through this process, it aimed to help 245D Consulting to achieve its missions, what to invest in, and focused opportunity growth to launch the business. The strategy plan was designed to provide 245D Consulting with a roadmap to meet its full potential.

Extension research and analysis was done to identify key challenges and opportunities with the stakeholder’s perspective, needs, and expectations.

Next Steps:

Going forward, I recommend 245D Consulting to take these prototypes and test their target audience and getting feedbacks and/or completing surveys on how to best improve prospective service provider’s experience when being introduce to 245D Consulting. As word of mouth is a great way to get the business out there, I would also recommend looking into different social media platforms to connect with users through the public.

245D Consulting could also offer guidance on how to register a small business before becoming a 245D License provider.