My design at WorkSafe BC’s Innovation Services

At WorkSafeBC, I worked on multiple different projects enhancing inter-departmental communication, especially during COVID-19 limitations, like an officer expertise locator within the 5,000-person organization and an improved new employee onboarding experience.

Contributions

UX Design, UI Design, Research, Prototyping, Accessibility Design

Tools

Figma, Word

Projects

StaySafe ConnectsMe Onboarding Oddysey RD Connect Return-to-Work Mobile

Transferring the paper-based work to a digital experience with Return-to-Work Mobile.

Before and After: The illustration contrasts two WorkSafeBC factory visit scenarios. On the left, an officer in standard PPE (vest, hard hat, boots, ear muffs) struggles to hear a worker while manually taking notes in the loud factory. On the right, the officer efficiently records notes with a digital pen and iPad, demonstrating the advantage of digital tools in a challenging industrial environment.

Project Context

Return-to-Work (RTW) is a process to help injured employees in safely resuming their jobs and mitigating long-term disability. WorkSafeBC officers will go to their worksite and assess the injuries and job requirements to develop temporary employment plans for workers, so they can gradually transition back to their roles. With fewer hours and customized duties, these employees can preserve their income while recovering.

My Role

Design Lead

As a solo designer, I led the new project for end-to-end research and design of an iPad application, aiming to improve how WorkSafeBC’s field officers manage cases and take notes in challenging environments (e.g. forests or factories.) My work includes conducting interviews with officers for in-depth UX research, defining the core accessibility problems, designing interactive prototypes, and documenting detailed research findings to guide future app development.

The Problem

Harsh environment made note-taking difficult.

The process of return to work officer

Field officers needed to quickly capture detailed information about injured workers' capabilities and job demands, often in dynamic and unpredictable settings, for example, at a construction site or manufacturing plant where they cannot hear well and wearing heavy gloves that made writing difficult. The app had to minimize data-entry errors, support multimedia documentation (photos/videos), and function seamlessly offline.

Since RTW was experimental, it did have any research or documentation. I needed to start over from the research to prove the concepts. So, I started a project document to keep a reference, including project descriptions, project objectives and my research plan.

Furthermore, I had to decide on the technical limitations of the project. Because the project was an experiment, finding out the devices/media to complete the experience was also one of my tasks.

Research

The research have a two stages, initial research and user testing. The initial research is to understand who is the user and their needs. After building persona and prototypes, I would ask the interviewee to try the interactive prototype and collect feedback.

Eventually, I had ten interviews with potential users and their managers. User interviews revealed that while Surface tablets were standard issue, the form factor hindered mobility in field assessments. I advocated for an iPad-based solution to improve ergonomic usability during site visits. Choosing the iPad 10.2 for the solution also keeps the project in budget.

I documented the pain points and my takeaways. For example, an efficient method that helped me think was user flows. In FigJam, I drew two user flows, Before and Imagined Future, comparing the traditional paper-based forms and the digitalized process on the iPad App I planned to design.

Design

To describe the reframed solution, Return-to-Work Planner Mobile is an internal-use app for officers who investigates injured workers’ conditions and help them to create a reduced-workload work plan on site.

🔒 Confidentiality Note: Due to strict privacy regulations and the internal nature of this project, specific screens and sensitive data have been obfuscated or replaced with high-level wireframes. The process shown highlights the workflow improvements while protecting organizational data.

Digitalizing Familiar Workflows from Paper

Officers were accustomed to a specific sequence of data entry on paper forms. I mapped out the existing workflow and designed the app to mirror this sequence, ensuring a minimal learning curve. This approach reduced resistance to adoption and allowed officers to leverage their existing knowledge.

The Dashboard aggregates case files, allowing officers to download specific cases for offline access before heading to a job site.

sketch
Iterating home page

To reduce the time spent on finding cases, I designed a case selector with a name view and a map view. The field officers can choose who to work with based on their availability and location.

Low-fi Prototype on iPad - home menu list view
Mid-fi Prototype on iPad - list view of case selector

Quick Data Entry

Officers often work in distracting environments. A key challenge was mapping complex insurance forms to a small screen. I implemented conditional logic (progressive disclosure) to only show relevant form fields, significantly reducing cognitive load compared to the static paper forms. I replaced manual writing with smart dropdowns and pre-populated logic based on case history. This minimized cognitive load and ensured data consistency across the old and new data.

Prototype on iPad - General Information
General Information is the first page users see after selecting a case

Another user's requirement is pre-populated selections to replace the worksheet, so I designed dropdowns for the Job Demand Screen and easy duplication at Planning Screen.

The most significant user pain point is not being able to take notes because the conversation could be too busy, so I proposed video or photo-taking functions. In the second round of interviews, previously interviewed users had positive feedback on my rough mockups.

sketch
The user flow of editing Job Demand have same selections from the worksheet

Conclusion

The "RTW Planner Mobile" is an internal enterprise application designed for speed and accuracy.

Key Contributions

Workflow Digitization: Transformed a rigid paper-based logic into a flexible digital workflow on iPad, reducing form completion time.

Enterprise Constraints: Designed UI patterns that adhered to strict data-entry requirements (e.g., pre-populated selections to replace open-text errors) while remaining usable on a 10.2" tablet interface.

User-Centered Process: Conducted over 14 hours of interviews with officers and managers. Identified that while Surface tablets were standard, the user base struggled with their usability in the field, leading to a pivot toward a more touch-friendly iOS interface.

Prototyping for Operations: Delivered high-fidelity interactive prototypes that simulated real-world field conditions (offline modes, photo documentation), proving the concept's viability to internal leadership.

The proposed solution demonstrated a potential reduction in administrative overhead for 200+ departmental users. The research artifacts, including detailed user flows and personas, established a new standard for UX documentation within the innovation team.

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