Caseworker Mobile App
Company
Northwoods (2023–2024)
My role
Senior Product Designer
Team members
Product Manager
Timeline
1 month
Background
Northwoods has an offering called Case Aide Services aimed at helping caseworkers with administrative tasks so that they have more time for other priorities. Originally, caseworkers could ask a Northwoods Case Aide for help via a ticketing portal, text messages, and emails. My job was to help the Product Manager dream up an application that would consolidate this communication and ticketing system into something more approachable and less time-consuming.
Goals
Reduce frequency of texted requests
Build a new digital brand based on existing marketing materials
Reuse patterns and components from Traverse
Challenges
Create a standalone app or add a feature for this to existing Traverse app
Short timeline (only a couple of weeks to design before development)
Start with messaging, but design navigation for future expansion
“I have had no issues with the app. I absolutely love it so far, and I think that it is so easy to request tickets on here!”
— Case Aide Services app user
“The app has been so helpful! This system is a lot easier than the ticket system.”
— Case Aide Services app user
Wireframes & research
When I joined this project, the product manager had already started wireframes. There were still some big questions around navigation and how the app should work for existing users of our other software, so I came up with a testing effort to get some quick feedback aimed at usability and eliminating future rework as much as possible.
Research approach
1:1 moderated usability interviews
30-minute sessions, 3 flows per session
3 Case Aides, 1 former case worker
Research questions
How do users react to accessing CAS through a separate app vs. Traverse
Are the flows clear as far as how to get to the functionality they need
Which experience would they prefer if they were a caseworker
Final designs
The research we conducted confirmed that it’d be most intuitive to create a new app for Case Aide Services rather than adding functionality to Traverse. I created a visual approach and final designs for our first release’s key screens, centered around the primary purple color used in marketing materials and some of our component designs for the Traverse UI redesign. Since there’s a big overlap between Traverse and Case Aide Services users, it made sense to use similar component patterns—leaning into a different color palette to differentiate the two.
App store graphics
I borrowed an illustration from other promotional materials for Case Aide Services to make graphics for the app store. While this app is ideal for phones, it’s available and functional on Apple and Android tablets.
More work
Traverse UI Redesign
KeyBank Account Originations
Passion Projects
Logo Design
Chase Authentication Experience
Seasonal Campaigns