Project Overview

— The Verified

Product: Credential Verification Platform

Example Client: American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA)

Platform: Web application

Goal:

The Problem

Organizations across industries — including hospitality, healthcare, and logistics — need a flexible way to verify and manage employee trustworthiness.

Without an aggregating platform, verifying sensitive attributes like criminal background, financial history, or protected data access is inconsistent and often manual. The AHLA, for example, required a way to validate credentials across both internal hotel staff and third-party service vendors.

Objectives

• Design a core platform (The Verified) that supports white-labeled deployment for multiple client organizations
• Allow organizations to:
  • Select and purchase tiered credentialing packages
  • Manage employees and vendor contacts
  • Issue Trust Badges upon verification completion
• Provide a dashboard to sort, view, and export verified personnel data

My Role

UX/UI Designer

• Defined cross-client architecture and user flows
• Created reusable components and visual language for badge-based trust indicators
• Designed dashboard interfaces for personnel and vendor management
• Helped shape positioning of The Verified as a modular platform serving various industries

Design Process

Research & Discovery

• Conducted stakeholder interviews to define credentialing standards by tier
• Validated the need for scalable deployment and customizable UI for different client types
• Studied existing trust badge systems for visual clarity and end-user comprehension

UX Design

• Mapped flows for account registration, subscription, and credential review
• Developed role-based access (admins vs. viewers) for internal org hierarchies
• Streamlined verification status tracking and badge generation

UI Design

• Created a tiered badge system (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum) to indicate verification depth
• Incorporated LinkedIn badge generation and support contact touchpoints
• Designed visually balanced layouts for subscription selection, credential breakdowns, and dashboard reports
• Prioritized responsive, accessible design

Key Screens

1. Login & Registration

Clean, branded login experience adaptable for different organizations

2. Product Tier Selection

Breakdown of verification tiers:

• Coverage areas
• Lookback periods
• Monthly pricing

Allows clients to choose the right level of depth for each employee type

3. Credential Activation

• Confirmation screen after subscription
• Status message ("Running Data Checks...")
• Summary of included verifications

4. Credential Viewer

• Tabbed layout for personal, financial, and behavioral categories
• Option to flag discrepancies or generate Trust Badges for verified profiles

5. Admin Dashboards

AHLA Example:

• View employees and vendors
• Badge visibility by level
• Contact info, department, verification status
• Exportable reports

Sidebar navigation and badge key for easy orientation

Projected Outcomes

• Deliver a flexible, modular platform (The Verified) usable across industries
• Enable clients like AHLA to efficiently manage trust within complex ecosystems
• Issue Trust Badges that serve as public-facing proof of employee vetting
• Support expansion to vendors and contractors with no loss of consistency
• Lay groundwork for white-labeled versions tailored to additional clients

What's next?

• Add mobile dashboard support for managers in the field
• Support batch imports for large organizations
• Expand Trust Badge integrations (e.g., Slack, email signatures)
• Introduce API support for syncing with HR systems and third-party verification providers

Project Overview

— Applicant Onboarding Platform

This project involved the design and development of an Applicant Onboarding web application for the purposes of streamlining personnel onboarding workflows across various security-sensitive environments. The platform was designed with scalability, security, and accessibility in mind, and has been deployed in both prototype and production stages for early adopters including TelosID (Telos Corporation) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Goals

Clients & Use Cases

While the first deployments were for TelosID (TSA PreCheck) and DHS internal processing, the system was architected to support a variety of clients with customizable branding and workflow configurations.

Each client instance could support unique workflows, compliance needs, and documentation requirements while benefiting from the platform’s shared core architecture.

Research & Discovery

The project began with a deep dive into existing federal onboarding workflows, with a focus on pain points experienced by:

• Applicants (e.g. redundant inputs, inaccessible forms, manual uploads)
• Adjudicators (e.g. slow turnaround, mismatched information, error-prone data)
• System integrators (e.g. compliance complexity, browser compatibility, legacy systems)

My Role

As a Product Designer on this project, I:

• Created wireframes and information architecture for the applicant journey
• Designed high-fidelity mockups prioritizing desktop layouts
• Built a functional prototype to demonstrate user flows and task completion for stakeholders and developers
• Worked closely with software engineers to implement components via HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Maintained design vision ownership through hands-on contributions to the final front-end
• Participated in iterative design reviews, usability testing, and accessibility audits

UX Design

• Developed a step-by-step guided flow with persistent progress tracking
• Prioritized form clarity and input validation, minimizing the risk of user errors
• Streamlined complex legal and identity verification steps into digestible, sequential tasks
• Advocated for early and consistent accessibility testing, aligned with Section 508

UI Design

• Delivered clean, accessible UI components that met Section 508, WCAG, and W3C standards
• Designed a modular interface, enabling easy rebranding for different clients
• Used color, typography, and whitespace to create a calm, focused experience for users dealing with high-stakes forms
• Created consistent visual states (e.g. editing, completed, error) for checklist-style task flows
• Integrated icons and feedback states to aid non-native English speakers and users with assistive devices

Key Features

Guided Applicant Flow

Applicants are led through a structured onboarding process:

• Fill in Personal Information
• Complete a Legal Questionnaire
• Download Required Forms
• Upload Completed & Supporting Documents
• Review & Submit

A persistent progress tracker ensures clarity and confidence.

Secure Digital Signatures

An integrated in-browser signing of required documents (e.g., OF306, NDAs), with tools for drawing or typing signatures and saving securely.

Document Verification

The adjudicator dashboard includes OCR-assisted ID verification, cross-referencing submitted documents with application and database records to flag mismatches.

Document Management

Applicants can:

• Download customized form packets
• Upload signed forms and identity documents
• View completed forms prior to submission

Accessibility

The system complies fully with Section 508, which is a superset of WCAG and W3C accessibility standards. Accessibility features include:

• Full keyboard navigation
• Screen reader-friendly layouts and labels
• Color contrast and legibility support
• ARIA roles and error handling for assistive tech users

Outcomes

• 68% improvement in processing time from application to billing
• Automated workflows significantly reduce staffing burden
• Enhanced document accuracy with integrated OCR and validation
• Universal usability through full accessibility compliance
• Scalable across agencies with configurable front-end branding and workflows

Project Overview

— Knowledge Management Tool (KMT)

This project focused on the design of a Knowledge Management Tool for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), a division of the U.S. Department of State. The system was intended to provide streamlined access to program data, documentation, and participant tracking across a range of international cultural exchange initiatives.

IDEO was initially contracted to provide a design vision, producing a style guide and sample UI screens. The remainder of the design and implementation work was carried out by our team at Buchanan & Edwards, who took over to build the complete interface and workflows.

Clients & Use Cases

The KMT platform was built to serve multiple ECA offices and administrators with varying permission levels. Core use cases included:

• Tracking participants across programs, sub-programs, and travel periods
• Managing funding sources, grants, and expenditures
• Creating and assigning participant groups to travel stops
• Recording and accessing program impact data over time

Research & Discovery

While the initial visual style and a handful of interaction patterns were provided by IDEO, our team conducted ongoing research into ECA’s evolving requirements, including:

• Reviewing grant reporting and participant management workflows
• Working with stakeholders to refine data visibility and permission requirements
• Assessing technical limitations and integration needs for legacy systems

My Role

As the Interface Designer on this project, I was responsible for:

• Translating IDEO’s style guide into fully realized UI components and layouts
• Designing and iterating on high-fidelity mockups across all major workflows
• Collaborating with business analysts and developers to support shifting requirements
• Ensuring design consistency and usability across screens not covered by the original design vision
• Providing HTML, CSS, and front-end implementation support where needed

UX Design

• Developed clear, step-driven flows for complex user actions like travel planning and funding allocation
• Structured UI layouts to prioritize discoverability and reduce training burden for State Department staff
• Worked to balance IDEO’s high-level design vision with practical usability across evolving feature sets
• Proposed reusable interaction patterns to maintain coherence and reduce developer overhead

UI Design

• Extended the provided visual style into a scalable design system
• Maintained adherence to accessibility best practices throughout the interface
• Designed tabular layouts for high-density participant and funding data
• Integrated visual cues and icons to improve user orientation and feedback
• Provided responsive layouts for consistent experience across screen sizes

Key Features

Participant Tracking

A centralized dashboard allowed administrators to view, filter, and export participant data, organized by fiscal year, program, and project.

Group Assignment & Travel Planning

Users could create participant groups and assign them to travel stops, with a clear overview of arrivals, departures, and group compositions.

Funding Management

Administrators could allocate funds from various grant sources, with tracking for direct and in-kind contributions and unassigned balances.

Location & Travel Stop Management

A guided form allowed entry of location metadata and mapping coordinates for each travel stop destination.

Consent & Policy Acknowledgement

The application began with a formal system use notice to ensure compliance with federal access policies and security expectations.

Accessibility

The platform was designed to align with WCAG standards (Section 508 did not yet include WCAG at the time of this project). Accessibility considerations included:

• Keyboard navigation and form control labeling
• Color contrast ratios for legibility
• ARIA support for complex data tables
• Minimal use of hidden or dynamic content without clear user feedback

Outcomes

• Created a complete and extensible UI system from IDEO’s partial vision
• Delivered high-fidelity screens and prototypes aligned with stakeholder needs
• Improved workflow clarity for travel planning, funding, and participant reporting
• Collaborated across disciplines to adapt to evolving federal requirements
• Note: The project was ultimately discontinued due to shifting client priorities; however, the design system and workflows were completed and positioned for future reuse.