VISA MANAGER

VISA manager is an application design for my senior year thesis in Design and Technology. It is a mobile application designed to reduce stress and anxiety during Visa applications. It does so by providing users a streamlined toolkit to assist them with various stages of the process. This project focuses on the UI/UX aspect of application design, hoping to create a tool that is simple enough to use yet complex enough to handle individual situations of its users.

DESIGN CHALLENGE

Despite the complexity of going through VISA applications, there aren’t a lot of services that provide self management of the process. Most of the services are either fully helping the users conduct their entire application process for a high price and low transparency. or they are spread across different places on the web that doesn’t provide any personalisation options.

DESIGN GOALS

To reduce stress and anxiety during the VISA application process.

As someone who has experienced the stressfulness of VISA application first hand, my goal for this thesis project is to create an intuitive, user-friendly application that could help both experienced and new VISA applicants alike.

DESIGN PROCESS

User Research

My targeted audience are teenagers and young adults around the age of 16-25. This age group is typically when people first started handling VISAs with more engagement and responsibilities, but without much experience. I’ve conducted surveys online, interviewed people, and research to compile the following design directions. Feel free to email me for the results.

User preference on applications:

• Clean, sleek interfaces

• Contents that are easy to scan

• Meaningful interactions

• Simple, efficient navigations

• High reliability

• Multi purpose/tasking

• The right tone

User Journey

A user journey timeline I compiled using the information gathered from researching, I compared the stress level during various stages of the VISA application to get a clear idea on what functions are most important for my app.

Precedents & Competitors

A quick comparison on the possible precedents and competitors — to further understand what people are doing right and wrong, and if they could help improve my app.

DERIVATION OF DESIGN GOAL

PROTOTYPING

By using various prototyping tools and workshopping with people during user tests, I was able to gain valuable knowledge and insight on my project. The users shared their thoughts with me, which allowed me to further develop my project. The process of iterating, user testing, and improving keeps cycling until the app looks polished and completed with good UI/UX designs.

Userflow

Wireframe

User testing

During the prototyping process, I’ve had several chances to user test my application. I focused on 3 key aspects — efficiency, convenience, and readability. With each user test, I was able to improve my prototype through different iterations. Below are features of the design I take into account in order to achieve the 3 key aspects.

Speed

How quickly can a user complete their task? Was it easy to find what they were looking for?

Aesthetic

Does the look and feel reflect the application? Does the colour and icons used make sense to the user? Is it more stress inducing, or less?

TAKEAWAY AND ITERATIONS

FINAL PROOF OF CONCEPT

Here is a proof of concept prototype that demonstrates the use case of my product, VISA manager. After entering the home page, users are given the choice to look through their itinerary overview, or they could select one of the four functions to help aid their task: Glossary, Do I need a VISA?, My VISAs, and Profiles.

Scanning the QR code to the end will lead you to the online version of the prototype.