Challenge

Virginia Retirement System needed quick insight into whether the proposed retirement benefits dashboard contained any usability flaws. Experience Dynamics spent three days performing a comprehensive expert usability review of the myVRS web application.First, we conducted an expert Usability Review of the existing application and current usability. This involved rapid analysis using Experience Dynamics usability evaluation checklist as well as assessing the web application user experience against usability best practices and known web application usability issues. The review showed priority of findings, an important indicator for product managers, developers and the design team to grasp severity of the findings.

Next, in order to engage stakeholders new to the usability research process, Experience Dynamics provided design recommendations including graphically- enhanced wireframe prototypes showing how to implement the usability findings. Five key areas of the web application were redesigned in less than two days, with major adoption-blockers removed including: log-in, privacy and the intuitiveness of user's account and benefits summary.

The findings contained new suggestions for log-in strategy, first dashboard view and the best way to present tables, calculators and wizards. In addition, a new simplified and user-friendly navigation system was proposed, an important aspect of the design that novice computer users required.

In a short time frame, the Experience Dynamics usability review gave VRS key decision makers the immediate insight they needed to make rapid launch decisions. Within one week, key stakeholders were able to move past strategic design problems using the findings from the Experience Dynamics team's report. The report brought the team together to discuss the right issues, and to advocate for design changes from a user'­s perspective.