This new initiative from Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries had a unique challenge in that, when I talked with the intended audience of this new website, they made it clear in no uncertain terms that they were not thrilled about this new legal requirement. Users were upset, and nobody wanted to have to use the tool any longer than they had to. Therefore, I tried to bring as much focus as possible by stripping away any information that did not strictly require their attention. The home page, when one logs in, shows when they can make their next report, as well as any reports they still have time to amend. Everything else is offloaded into other tabs.

Despite their initial protests, users did have some needs for advanced editing features, as well:

• The ability to make amendments to their submitted reports.
• The ability to save a working draft, in case they were interrupted and needed to return to finish their report later.

I included these features in the prototype and made an effort to call out these special statuses for drafts and amendments. For drafts, I added a badge to the saved report, along with microcopy cues on the editing actions. For amendments, I added an info box at the top of the edit screens to remind the user that they’re overwriting an older report.

In addition to making reports, employers can also add the locations of the various businesses they manage, so they don’t have to tediously type in the same information every month. Users are able to freely add and delete locations at will without worrying about screwing up previous reports, and they can also manage their locations within the reporting process.