Clerks — 70%
Primary users handling high-volume transactions under time pressure.
Business Requirement
Stakeholders wanted to modernize the legacy POS system, improve the user experience, and address existing user pain points.
My Role
Led the homepage redesign end-to-end, from discovery to final prototype.
My Goal
Redesign the POS experience around operators' most frequent tasks, reducing visual clutter and cognitive load to help them work faster, make fewer errors, and require less training.
Establishing a Design Framework
Without a shared structure, design decisions fragment quickly, especially in fast-paced, cross-functional teams. The framework helped us stay consistent, reduce ambiguity, and focus on solving the right problems.
Users I'm Designing For
The homepage had to work for three operator roles, with clerks as the primary users.
Deputy Registrar — 20%
Responsible for accuracy, compliance, and smooth daily operations.
BMV Managers — 10%
Focused on oversight, efficiency, and operational visibility.
Key Friction Points
BMV operators expressing their pain points.
65%
- Dense, unstructured text slows scanning
- Weak separation between sections
- Small font sizes increase reading effort
- Small targets increase the likelihood of mistakes
- Lack of prioritization — everything feels equally important
User impact: Slow task completion. Frequent misclicks or wrong workflows. Heavy reliance on training.
20%
- Important actions don’t stand out from secondary content
- Similar styling across elements reduces distinction
- Layout feels flat with no directional flow
- Users must scan the entire screen to locate a key action
User impact: Eye strain. Slower scanning. Reduced trust. Exclusion of some users.
15%
- Colors compete instead of guiding attention
- Visual inconsistency reduces predictability
- Sections feel disconnected rather than unified
User impact: Users get lost. High error rate. Confusion.
5%
- No personalization or shortcuts
- Lack of guidance for first-time users
- Users rely on training instead of intuition
User impact: Frustration over time. Reduced productivity. Lower satisfaction.
Hearing From Leadership
BMV leadership expressing their pain points.
Leah Horne
BMV District Manager
"We’re constantly bringing in new employees, and the system just isn’t intuitive enough for them to pick up quickly. We need something that reduces the learning curve and doesn’t rely on prior experience."
Dennis Decekr
BMV Branch Manager
“Right now, transactions are taking longer than they should. If we can’t speed up the process, it directly impacts how many customers we can serve in a day.”
Aliana Larsen
BMV Branch Manager
“It’s already hard enough to find and retain staff — we can’t afford a system that takes weeks to learn before someone becomes productive.”
Alana Branch
BMV Relations (Ohio Department)
“With the turnover we have, we need a system that works for new employees on day one — not something they have to learn over time.”
Current User Experience Metrics
The 2017 update introduced a temporary spike in user engagement. However, without addressing core usability issues, engagement steadily declined over time.
These metrics reinforce what we observed in user research — the system is slowing users down instead of supporting efficiency.
Synthesizing the Insights
Each insight is on a sticky note. Drag a note or move it with the arrow keys to place it on the board.
Speed is the core need — operators perform the same small set of tasks dozens of times a day. The interface should be designed around frequency of use, not an alphabetical or arbitrary list of every possible function.
Visual noise is the biggest barrier — the absence of hierarchy, spacing, and grouping means operators carry the cognitive load that the design should be handling for them.
The left sidebar is the most underused opportunity on the screen — it's the natural home for the most frequent Point of Sale actions, yet it sits almost entirely empty.
Trust matters even on a static screen. A dated, chaotic design passively signals that the service behind it is the same.
Small design decisions have outsized consequences — a few pixels of extra spacing between links, a clearer type scale, and a logical grouping of the top strip would eliminate the majority of the pain points operators expressed.
Framing the Problem
"BMV operators need a homepage that clearly communicates priorities at a glance, so they can complete tasks quickly and accurately."
The current experience lacks hierarchy and structure, causing delays, increasing errors, and reducing confidence.
How Might We Solve This
Make the most used actions the largest elements on the screen
Establish a clear grid system so every element has a reason for where it sits on the screen
Apply a typographic scale
H1 for primary actions, H2 for section labels, body for supporting info — so hierarchy is built into the type system
Use proximity as a grouping tool
Elements that belong together should be visually closer to each other than to unrelated elements
Apply information architecture principles
Card sort the links into logical mental model categories that match how operators think, not how the system is built
Introduce a navigation pattern with clear affordance
Tabs, a sidebar nav, or a grouped menu — instead of a flat undifferentiated list
Use consistent iconography alongside text labels to create dual-coding, making links faster to recognize than text alone
Group links under labeled categories so operators build a mental map of the interface rather than memorizing individual item positions
Apply the principle of least surprise
Use UI patterns that match conventions operators already know from everyday digital tools
Build visual consistency into every repeated element so once an operator learns one pattern, they can apply it everywhere on the screen
Use affordance-driven design
Buttons should look like buttons, links should look like links, so no element requires prior knowledge to understand
Prioritizing Features
from HMW Session
MVP
- Make the most used actions the largest elements on the screen
- Establish a clear grid system so every element has a reason for where it sits
- Apply a typographic scale so hierarchy is built into the type system
- Use proximity as a grouping tool
- Introduce a navigation pattern with a clear affordance instead of a flat list
- Use UI patterns operators already know, with buttons that look like buttons and links that look like links
- Keep every repeated element visually consistent
Future enhancements
- Card-sort the top-strip links into categories that match how operators think, not how the system is built
- Group links under labeled categories so operators can navigate by mental map
- Pair consistent icons with labels for dual-coding
- A later accessibility pass beyond strong color and icons
- A role-based homepage that shows clerks, managers, and deputy registrars only what they use
Design Phase
Comparable Analysis
To ground the redesign, I analyzed comparable systems to understand common patterns, strengths, and gaps. The goal wasn’t to replicate solutions, but to identify what works, what doesn’t, and where we could improve.
Sketching Early Concepts
I explored multiple layout directions to test how information could be structured more effectively.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
I translated the sketches into low-fidelity wireframes to test layout, grouping, and where frequent actions sit on the screen.
Aligning with Stakeholders
on Design Options
Layout concept 1
- Applying Hick's Law by reducing the number of visible choices to decrease decision time
- The search bar follows Fitts's Law by making it the largest and most reachable target on the screen
- A different color for each icon lets operators catch the item by color once they know the screen
- Icon and label pairing is the backup, so recognition does not depend on memory
Layout concept 2
- A categorized sidebar uses proximity so operators map the screen instead of memorizing it
- “Most Recent” puts frequent tasks first
- Larger, well-spaced targets reduce accidental clicks under time pressure
- Labels and icons support recognition over recall
Testing Both Directions
After aligning on two directions, I tested both with users. The question was which layout reduced effort and improved clarity.
"This already feels so much less stressful to look at than what we have now. I don't feel like I have to read everything just to find one thing."
Chris Lee"If the most recent transactions are always at the top, even someone new would figure out pretty quickly what they're supposed to be doing."
Daniel Wilson"Now I'm not sure if I should use the sidebar or the grid to get where I need to go. Which one is the right way?"
Olivia Davis"The illustration is nice but it feels like a consumer app, not something I'd use at work. It doesn't feel like it belongs here."
Alex Johnson"The icons help a lot — I can spot what I need without reading every word. That saves time when things get busy."
Emily Carter"The categories in the sidebar are a good idea but I'd rather see the transactions themselves grouped that way instead of having a separate panel for it."
David Kim"Nobody from leadership notices this but shortcuts are what actually save us time. I do the same 3 transactions all day — ctrl+shift+V and I don't even need to touch the mouse."
Maria Garcia"The Most Recent section is exactly what I needed. I walk up to this screen and I already know the first three things I'm going to do today."
Sophia Martinez"The spacing between everything makes such a difference — I'm not accidentally clicking the wrong thing anymore when I'm in a rush."
Michael BrownPrioritizing User Feedback
Both improved the experience, but not speed and clarity. That required better prioritization and hierarchy. I mapped user feedback by priority and impact, so the next iteration focused on changes that would meaningfully improve the day at the counter.
Updating the Design
I aligned with business and technical stakeholders on what could be incorporated without expanding scope.
Key Improvements
User-controlled “Favorites”
During a feedback alignment session, I proposed replacing the “Most Recent” section with a Favorites feature—giving users control over frequently used items instead of relying on system-generated behavior.
Flexible transaction “Grouping”
This was a key insight from early user research, but I initially excluded it due to business concerns around grouping—specifically how evolving transactions or new features might not fit cleanly into predefined categories.
Faster access with “Shortcuts”
This insight emerged during testing of the initial designs and wasn’t identified in earlier research, but it proved critical as it directly impacts daily operations and time efficiency per customer.
Final Validation
- User Task 1: A customer is at your window — find and launch a Vehicle Registration transaction as quickly as you can
- User Task 2: Resume a previously opened receipt starting from the homepage
- User Task 3: (New operator with no training) — Using only what you see on screen, find where you would go to start a new transaction
- User Task 4: Find the DL Abstract transaction and tell me how you located it
- User Task 5: Now use the keyboard shortcut for the same transaction — tell me how you feel about having it displayed on screen
- User Task 6: Find the Void transaction — tell me which category you expected to find it under before you looked
Key Takeaways
Based on the KPI improvements, the redesign addressed the core usability issues.
- Speed is critical — the interface now supports faster access to frequent tasks
- Reduced visual noise — clearer hierarchy and grouping lower cognitive load
- Better use of space — key areas now support primary actions
- Improved perception — a cleaner, structured UI increases confidence
- Small changes, big impact — spacing, grouping, and hierarchy did most of the work
Looking Ahead
Two enhancements stayed in the pipeline after the homepage shipped.
Inclusive design
The MVP uses strong color and icons so operators can recognize an action quickly. A later version would lean further into accessibility so the same screen works for a wider range of operators.
Role-based homepage
Today every operator sees every transaction. A later version would tailor the grid by role — clerk, manager, deputy registrar — and show only what that role uses.