In a former position, I worked closely with the UX architect to design a product that was as intuitive as possible and provided learning opportunities when they were needed. Our collaboration helped us develop one of the simplest fingerprint solutions in the market. Here’s how we did it.
Research
First, we did our research. We talked to customers and the companies that served them, and we surveyed the kind of fingerprint technicians likely to use our product. In the process, we learned that:
- People who get fingerprinted for the reasons we serve are usually not familiar with the process and don’t know what to expect
- Fingerprint technicians have so many other job tasks that they often forget the nuances of good fingerprinting
Approach
We decided that both customers and technicians might need help capturing good fingerprints – a task that isn’t as easy as it may sound. The UX team put pointers on the products screens themselves, but we also built in videos that applicants and technicians can use or skip as they wish. That way, a customer can learn what to expect and a technician can be reminded of technique at the same time.
Solution Examples
Below are two examples of the videos that, in addition to being on our fingerprinting station, are available publicly on the web.
We also created training videos for maintaining the scanner and capturing photos. These videos are both built into the software and are available on our YouTube and Vimeo sites.
Outcome
Success! Customers and technicians use the videos hundreds of times daily and regularly express appreciation for them in our post-fingerprint surveys. Also, technicians who go through this and our other training perform significantly better when taking fingerprints – both reducing the fingerprinting time and improving the quality scores of the fingerprints they capture.
Sandra Elliott 