WORKDAY
WayTo by Workday streamlines identity verification for employees through blockchain technology.
Overview
WayTo by Workday is the employee side of the Credentials platform and Workday's first direct-to-consumer product. Designed to follow people throughout their careers, WayTo allows individuals to prove their identity through verified credentials powered by the blockchain. Read more about it here.
My Role
I was part of Design X within the Workday Labs organization. Our job was to foster innovation and embrace emerging technologies to help our customers solve their most complex challenges. By collaborating with customers the idea of credentials emerged and I happily jumped aboard to be the design lead for Credentials, WayTo, and the integration into Workday. Since this was a completely new product, we were taking it from 0 to 1. In this case study I focus on just a couple of challenges faced when building the WayTo MVP.
Company
Workday
Platform
iOS
Android
Team
2 Designers
2 Researchers
1 Content Strategist
8 Engineers
1 Product Manager
CHALLENGE
After completing the Credential Admin web application, organizations could issue credentials to users, but users had no way to accept and use the credentials.
OBJECTIVES
Create a solution that allowed individuals to verify their identity using Workday Credentials. They should be able to do two things in the MVP:
01.
Receiving Credentials
The ability to accept/deny issued credentials and the ability to access their credentials at any time. They should be able to view the details of that credential and manage all issued credentials.
02.
Sharing Credentials
Users need to be able to share their collected credentials and control who has access to that data.
RECEIVING CREDENTIALS
When I started at Workday, I was primarily focused on the Credential Admin, the first product in the platform that helped lay the foundation for WayTo. The administrator experience allowed organizations to create credentials and issue them to individuals. I was tasked to join the product team as the design lead and transform a previous designer's screens into a fully working product that adhered to Workday's Canvas Design System.
Credential Admin Sample Prototype
(Best viewed in full screen)
After being on the Credential Admin team, I pivoted to the WayTo team to continue building the platform. Since I had experience in one part of the ecosystem, it was easy for me to continue to make an impact because I had a clear understanding of the initiative from a holistic view. At this time, there was a v1 but I was tasked with scaling the concept into a fully working product.
Following the decentralized digital identity model, our goal was to build a solution that allowed users to receive issued credentials and store them to be accessible anywhere and at any time. Thus, the team decided to go with a native mobile application first.
Decentralized Digital Identity. Source: Medium
Discovery
I began this project by doing a competitive analysis to understand the current landscape and take a look at other applications in the blockchain space, primarily cryptocurrency and identity wallets. I wanted to make sure that whatever we designed aligned with the user's mental model around security. Working alongside a researcher, we gathered screenshots and highlighted features that could be useful in our product and would meet the product requirements.
Competitive Analysis
Low Fidelity, High Impact
After getting an idea of what we wanted to create, I designed a user flow of what the entire application could look like. This captured the end-to-end journey; from receiving an email letting them know that a credential was issued to them, to creating an account, to accepting and saving their credential. By mapping this out, I could present it to the team to make sure it aligned and was feasible. It also helped establish roadmaps and resources.
v3 of Onboarding Flow and Initial Screens
Aligning to Workday's Design System
While iterating on the initial screens, one of the biggest struggles early on was whether WayTo should look and feel separate from Workday. The previous designer pushed for it to not be associated and v1 was released with its own brand style. The visual design looked great but the colors, illustrations, and typography were not Workday. When I joined the team, myself and several stakeholders pushed to get it under the Workday brand. I believed that WayTo needed to be linked to Workday because of name recognition. If we wanted users to use and trust WayTo, they needed to know that it was from a reputable company. Users were going to have personal data (PII) stored in this application, so WayTo began its conversion back to Workday branding.
Evolution of Home Screen
Onboarding & Account Security
Another improvement I worked on was the onboarding experience. From launching a v1 to a small cohort we learned that the account creation and account recovery process was convoluted. We saw that users were often frustrated by how many steps were involved to claim their first credential. Also, if they went a while without using the app they would often be locked out of their account if they forgot their passphrase. At the time there was no way to access a locked account unless they emailed support to delete their account and start all over again.
I had to push the team from the beginning, especially the PM, to streamline this process to make it simpler. My goal was to reduce the number of taps and screens the user was forced to go through before seeing the details of their first credential. Additionally, I wanted to change how accounts were secured to something more universally understood. Originally the PM wanted a 12-word recovery phrase, which I had to argue against. I liked the amount of security that it offered, but knew that if users were forgetting one word, they would definitely forget 12 random words. I needed to find the balance between security and ease of use.
After a few weeks of the PM taking support emails to reset accounts, he agreed on creating a solution that could scale. We ultimately agreed on my solution of a self-guided reset password flow and adding 2FA.
Before and After of Account Creation
Credential Transparency
The last part of this flow was accepting the issued credential. In the v1 designs, I felt like there wasn't enough being shown to the user around validity and issuing sources. Focused on exposing bad apples, spam, and non-verified accounts, I thought we should be as transparent as possible to the user. Showing more details about the issuer and how to contact them.
Before and After of Credential Details
SHARING CREDENTIALS
Working With The US Government
Up to this point, users were able to receive credentials and build their digital identity but were limited to Workday's ecosystem. Users were not able to share credentials with other platforms.
However, in 2019 our leadership team joined an initiative to be part of a new task force called "National Council for the American Worker" that involved Workday, the US Department of Commerce, IBM, Walmart, and several other large corporations. My team and I had the pleasure of collaborating with other product teams from these companies to solve complex use cases that involved every party.
One of those use cases was to improve the hiring process when individuals applied for an open job. The goal was to create a way to import credentials from the IBM Training Digital Learning Platform and share them when applying for a new job at Walmart. Allowing them to quickly share qualifications when requested. The user now could create "Trusted Connections" with 3rd party services and control which credentials were continuously shared with them.
IBM, Workday, Walmart Prototype
(Best viewed in full screen)
Public Sharing and LinkedIn
In addition to connecting with IBM and creating the "Trusted Connections", we worked on allowing users to share their data publicly, such as adding credentials to LinkedIn. In this flow, it was important to warn users when data would become public and the ability to revoke access if needed. We added more transparency and sharing management.
Screens for Sharing
Proof Request Iterations
As we added more capabilities around sharing, I made sure that the proof request's visual and interaction designs improved too. These added improvements included granular attribute selection, detailed error states, smart auto-filling, public and expired status badges, and requester details.
Proof Request Iterations
FINAL OUTCOME
My team and I turned a couple of conceptual screens into a complete digital identity wallet. Not only did it work well with the Credential Admin, but we expanded it to work with other platforms. I eventually transitioned to working on the integration of Credentials into the core Workday product but not before helping guide WayTo into a solution that was used by tens of thousands of employees.
NEXT STEPS
When I left Workday, WayTo was still in a pilot program. I am unsure where it stands today, but the potential of the application was tremendous. I helped participate in extensive formative research activities/trips. From this research, I saw how many pain points this application could solve for our customers around the hiring process. I truly hope that this product continues its success.
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