Available for New Project

Redesigning a government trade platform through user research

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

FULL CASE STUDY

Overview

A national public-sector digital platform used to manage import and export procedures had accumulated significant usability issues across its core workflows. Despite being widely adopted by government agencies, intermediaries, and citizens, the experience had become fragmented and inefficient over time.

To guide a large-scale redesign, I led a structured research effort combining:

  • Contextual Inquiry sessions observing real-world task execution
  • Usability interviews with three user groups: Government agencies, Citizens, and Customs Brokers
  • Task-based evaluation using redesigned prototypes to validate improvements

This case study outlines how research-driven insights and recommendations shaped a simpler, more effective user experience.

Research goals

  • Understand how each user profile interacts with the platform in real-world workflows.
  • Identify pain points, inefficiencies, and mental models across user groups.
  • Validate whether the proposed redesign solved discoverability, clarity, and flow issues.
  • Prioritize improvements that would meaningfully impact high-frequency tasks.

Methodology

1. Contextual inquiry

We conducted nine in-depth sessions (three per profile) where users shared their screen and completed everyday tasks in the production or pre-production environment.
Focus areas included: home dashboard usage, search behavior, form completion patterns, workflow breakdowns, and external tools used to compensate for platform gaps.

2. Usability test of the new design

Users were shown prototype screens and asked to:

  • Interpret what they saw
  • Complete common tasks
  • Explain expected system behavior

This allowed us to validate new UI patterns, wording, structure, and interaction flows.

Key findings by user group

1. Government agencies

Overall perception

Agency users were generally satisfied with the system and accustomed to its workflow. However, they relied on workarounds, repetitive tasks, and external spreadsheets to perform reporting or quota tracking.

Main pain points

  • Overloaded inbox requiring heavy filtering to find relevant cases.
  • Difficulty reviewing observations due to non-numbered tables and lack of visual change tracking.
  • Manual extraction of data from certificates to build internal reports.

Critical opportunities

  • Custom work views based on filters.
  • Highlighting changes and observations in forms.
  • Better integration of reporting needs (metrics, quotas).
  • Custom work views based on filters.
  • Highlighting changes and observations in forms.
  • Better integration of reporting needs (metrics, quotas).

2. Citizens

Overall perception

This group experienced the poorest UX. Even tech-savvy participants struggled with basic tasks such as starting a URSEC procedure or finding their certificate.

Main pain points

  • Overwhelming home screen with too many options.
  • Confusing terminology (e.g., homologación).
  • Poor discoverability of next steps and payment flow.
  • Inability to locate previously issued certificates.

Critical opportunities

  • A simplified, guided, contextualized flow (wizard).
  • Redesign of the home page around the top 3 actions: Start a procedure → Check status → Download certificate.
  • Clearer communication in confirmation emails (purpose, next steps, direct links).

After testing the redesigned UI, citizens rated the experience dramatically better and felt tasks were significantly easier to complete.

3. Customs brokers

Overall perception

This group was satisfied overall but identified efficiency issues that slowed them down, especially with high volume workflows.

Main pain points

  • Heavy reliance on external tools (Mega3, Excel) for product validation and form guidance.
  • Difficulty matching Operations (OCE) with Procedures.
  • Repetitive duplication of certificates to reuse data.
  • Slow or unstable product homologation searches (URSEC).

Critical opportunities

  • Contextual help + better examples in forms.
  • Ability to save templates or duplicate operations without carrying over old observations.
  • More informative messaging with links to the related procedure.
  • Improved communication channels with agencies for clarification.

Cross profile insights

1. The home screen is overloaded

All groups struggled with the amount of information, acronyms, and underused sections such as “Quick Start.”
Creating personalized, simplified starting points was important.

2. Observations (comments) are a major friction point

Tracking and addressing observations lacked:

  • Timestamps
  • Visual highlighting
  • Table structure
  • Bidirectional clarity

3. Terminology and labels often fail

Terms like “Homologation” “OCE” and form field concepts were unclear to non-experts.

4. Lack of continuity and deep linking

Users frequently got lost when navigating between emails, messages, operations, and certificates. Direct links were essential.

Impact of the prototype evaluation

The redesign tested during interviews produced highly positive feedback:

Government agencies

  • Found the UI easier and clearer.
  • Appreciated additions like "Cancel" and chat-style interactions.

Citizens

  • Described the experience as “radically simpler.”
  • Easily followed guided flows and descriptions.
  • Understood forms and found documents quickly.

Customs brokers

  • Considered the new form design a “huge improvement.”
  • Valued clearer hints, duplication options, and improved payment confirmation screens.

Recommendations driving the redesign

High priority

  • Home redesign tailored to user intent.
  • Wizard based flow for citizens.
  • Better help and contextual guidance.
  • Automatic timestamps + change highlighting in procedures.
  • Improved search and visibility of certificates.

Medium priority

  • Create user-defined work views for agencies.
  • Simplify product selection and remove unnecessary fields.
  • Improve examples and documentation for custom brokers.

Low priority

  • Remove unused data columns.
  • De-emphasize steps that do not add value.

Outcome

The research helped the team move from assumptions to a shared strategy, shaping a simpler, more guided experience and defining the path for continuous product improvements.

Tags
Share this post:
Linkedin

Other projects