Citizenship Application Status Tracker

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) - 2021
Usability Testing Project
Context
The tracker is an online tool that provides application status updates to Canadian citizenship applicants. The design team had the following design goals when developing the tool:
‍
(1) convey the overall status of the application,
(2) show that IRCC may require clients to do something to move their application forward, and
(3) communicate that there has been movement on their file.

The design team came to the usability testing team early in the process to validate some of design decisions and adjust accordingly, when applicable.
Contributions Overview
The tool was improved over four rounds of usability testing conducted in each design sprint; recommendations from each round were taken into consideration in each following round to make sure they work as intended. The work was done in collaboration with the product owner and a cross-functional working group. The final rounds of testing showed no to little usability issues, proving the value of doing usability testign early on, and frequently. We showcased such value in multiple deparmental presentations to nurture the UX culture accross a slowly UX-maturing organizaiton. The tool was then officially launched for IRCC clients, and it has inspried the development of another online tracker tool for Permanent Residence applicants, which was usability testing by us as well.
Look and feel
The screenshot on the right with fictitious data shows the look and feel of the tool in the third iteration, which is close to the version that went live, after considerable improvements had been implemented based on findings from the initial rounds of testing.

Note that a partial section of the tracker that shows activities that took place on the applicant's file with dates is not included in the screenshot to preserve the confidentiality of the tool and to not mislead or confuse readers who may happen to be clients of IRCC with a citizenship application in process.

Methods and Results in Depth

Test Objectives
Consistent across all iterations

We designed a usability testing scenarios and tasks to explore whether participants can:
• Find the current state oftheir application
• Learn about their next steps
• Understand the meaning of activities and status updates
Participants
Distinct in each iteration
• Five to six participants in each iteration
• All participants were permanent resident clients who had a citizenship application in process
‍
Timeline
For the usability testing only
• Rounds of testing were conducted between January and April 2021

Iterations in Depth

Iteration 1
• “New update” was not always noticed by participants.
• Next steps section was unclear.
• “Activity Status” section was confusing.
• There was a confusion around the meaning of “Prohibition” vs. “Security Clearance” vs. “Criminality Clearance”.
“One item is labeled “New action”, but the others are not. Have I already seen other action items?!”
Iteration 2 - Changes
• “Activity Status” renamed to “Overview” and moved to the top
• More labels were added and colours were changed
• Definitions of activities in the "Overview" section were added and displayed when an activity is expanded.
Iteration 2 - Findings
• Participants were overwhelmed by number of labels and were unsure about next steps.
• Participants were also confused about “Overview” vs “Your Tasks” sections.
• In addition, participants found the distinction between “SecurityClearance” and “Criminality Clearance” unclear.
“I’m kind of confused –there are actions required, but it doesn’t say what actions […] I would continue to look for more instructions and if I can’t find them, I will call the help center.”
Iteration 3 - Changes
• A single line showing an application status was added to the top.
• “Your next steps” were clearly explained and placed at the top of the page with an explicit title.
• Activities with action required were marked as “in progress” since the user would not have to take actions but to keep waiting for processing to be completed.
Iteration 3 - Findings
This round showed mostly positive feedback, as the application status and next steps were clear, and participants were confident in their understanding of the information.
About next steps: “This is exactly what I was expecting […] that’s good, I did not even have to scroll down to see this information.”
Final iteration - Changes and Findings
Little changes were done to the prototype at this stage, and they were mainly around the language. For example, security clearance and criminal records were grouped as “background check”. The design team had been actually trying to figure out what would best explain this to clients while also conforming to certain limitations we are bound by as a department. The most appropriate decision around those limitations was to group them as “background check”.

Findings on this round were also straightforward and positive, and aligned with those of the previous round.
Powered by Webflow
Powered by Webflow