The backstory
As required by the Maryland State Ethics Commission (MSEC) all government employees and elected officials of a certain status must file a Financial Disclosure Statement annually. This practice serves to prevent corruption within government and to increase transparency of spending practices.
Officials required to submit a Financial Disclosure Statement must do so to disclose the accumulation or withholding of personal assets such as property, interests in outside companies, or any gifts they have received. These statements are then made available over a public access portal.
Areas for
improvement
MSEC’s original digital system was built in 2004 and, up until the organization sought out Enovational, it was the most up-to-date version of the system. The scope of this project was to not only modernize the functionality of the system, but to also revamp the user experience to create the most efficient and friendly system possible.
Our solution
After a thorough analysis effort, we concluded that, first and foremost, we needed to update the user interface (UI) with larger format text, more concrete language, and informational tooltips and popovers. In addition to updating the UI, we used the data we gathered from our analysis effort about the system’s bottlenecks to map out new functionality, including auto notifications and updated verification process, amongst other tools.
New features
& updates
Conditional logic for
form field display
With their old system, every form field was displayed regardless of relevance to the user. With our solution, form fields are set to display or remain hidden based on a particular set of criteria.
Search and browse
capabilities
Forms and filers can be easily searched for by using the search engine tool at the top of the user dashboard. In addition, information can be filtered against a varied set of criteria.
Actionable reports
Users have access to a reporting dashboard where they can quickly generate summaries of form and filer data, such as seeing all amended submissions for 2018 or seeing the submissions made for a specific agency.
Auto notifications
Users receive automated notifications to alert them about the status of their submissions.
Help tools
The system is equipped with popovers and tooltips which display help text over system and process language that may be unknown by the user. Filers are guided through every step of the process, improving their overall user experience.