EverCheck As The “Clear To Work” Platform: A Redesign Inspired By The Void

At EverCheck, we hold a strong belief that our value is not defined only by the service we provide. Our value shines in the void.

Here’s what I mean.

Think about the last time you opened a door. It’s probably difficult to recall because the process is fairly frictionless — you grasp the handle, pull it toward you, step through, and let it close behind you.

What happens, though, when you needed to push rather than pull. Or when the door is locked. Or perhaps the door is much heavier than you anticipated. This is friction — a deviation in the expected process that prevents you from achieving your goal in the simplest and most efficient way possible. Donald Norman, a prominent author and usability engineer, explores this idea in-depth in The Design of Everyday Things — which is worth a read.

The void is the place where the experience is so seamless that you barely recognize it — when the door swings wide effortlessly and you walk through without giving it a second thought. The void is what’s not there, rather than what is.

That’s the idea behind EverCheck’s new Clear to Work platform.

As we began releasing new products and services in 2017–2018, we realized that we had an opportunity to think about the internal structure of our software a bit differently. For instance, EverCheck’s Prehire application verifies licensure for candidates daily. It wouldn’t make sense, though, to create employee profiles for candidates — they’re not employees, after all. Rather than trying to fit new products into an existing framework, we went a whole new direction: the platform-as-a-service model.

A new starting point at the Launchpad.

The Launchpad is new to our EverCheck users, and it is essential because EverCheck is no longer a singularly-focused solution for ongoing employee license verification. Now, users may have access to apps like Prehire, Education, and others. The Launchpad allows users to have one view of all of their EverCheck apps and select which app matches their session intent.

In addition to apps, the Launchpad also calls out recent messages. Although the messages are also delivered via email, having them front and center on the Launchpad acts as a safety net in case one gets accidentally deleted from a user’s inbox. You’ll notice these redundancies often throughout the new EverCheck platform, and they’re intended to act as a fail-safe in case a user misses or neglects one or more of the measures intended to keep them aware of important information.

Items that require review are built as workflows, not reports.

Before, EverCheck called out important information like name discrepancies and disciplinary actions in reports. These types of items are no longer reports, but rather workable lists called out from within the License Verification application.

Click into the app, and users see the verification dashboard they’re familiar with plus one more widget titled “Needs Review.” Here, users see the total number of outstanding disciplinary actions, name discrepancies, and pending credentials — the types of things that may affect an employee’s eligibility to work. Each of these items also has its own tab within the License Verification app — another built-in layer of redundancy.

These workflows have clear actions for users. Click into the tab to see a list of items that require review, click into the line item for more detail, then see the critical information EverCheck has collected either from the primary source or from the employees themselves. Big, clear calls to action let the user know how to move forward. Either accept or deny the credential. Clear the disciplinary action. Address the name discrepancy in the HRIS. Having this type of instructional workflow takes the experience one step further from simply reporting on it to having clear, actionable next steps.

License histories are more mobile as modals.

After researching our users’ interaction within EverCheck, we understood that license verification histories were one of the single most commonly-utilized features in the platform. But before, users would only be able to access these histories via the corresponding employee profile.

In the EverCheck Clear to Work platform, we built these histories as modals so that no matter where a user is viewing important licensure information, the history can pop up without interrupting their current workflow.

For instance, in the License Status report, a user may see that a license is showing an expired status and wish to view the PSV history for the license. Rather than first searching for the employee profile, the user can access the history by selecting the interactive license element from the report page without ever having to leave the page. Keeping our users where they are means keeping them where they want to be, something that’s now possible because of license history modals.

An EverCheck that works for everyone.

The EverCheck platform will soon be ADA compliant — meaning that those with disabilities will experience the same ease-of-use as those without disabilities.

Deeper color contrasts and larger font sizes allow those who are visually impaired to better navigate the site. Our team is working to ensure that the site is compatible with screen readers. The site can be used with or without the aid of a mouse, and the navigation prompts are clear and concise.

With this new redesign, we’re delivering a baseline for ADA compliance, and we plan to continue these improvements to create an even more accessible experience for all of our users.

This new design challenged us to think about how to ensure our users don’t think about the design at all. We aim to chip away at friction, little by little, and this is just the beginning.

As our Director of Product Design likes to say — a site is never done; it’s only due.

Until the next round of improvements — enjoy your new experience!

Feedback? We want to hear it. Email us at feedback@evercheck.com.