Intro
Certified (ISC)² members are required to earn and submit Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits during their three-year certification cycle. The total number of CPE credits earned within a three-year cycle must add up to the minimum CPE credits required during a three-year certification cycle. (ISC)² has a suggested annual minimum to help balance maintaining your certification.
The CPE portal is an online area for members to record every CPE they earn, print out transcripts, and see if any submissions are under audit. The portal is used on a regular basis by (ISC)²’s more than 150,000 certified members. A smooth and fast experience is essential.
Usage Statistics
from April 2018 to October 2018
72,000
members used the portal
480,000
CPEs were submitted
2,600,000
credits submitted in total
User Research
Feedback on the first version of the CPE portal:
- Decision path is too complicated
- Transcripts are not organized and are missing important details
- Tile view of CPEs is hard to use and is missing key information
- Error Messaging and feedback is not always in view or helpful
- Overall interface is not user friendly
first screen of original CPE portal
Initial Experience
initial load screen showed for almost 30 seconds at times
Step 1 of CPE portal v1
Step 2 of CPE portal v1
Step 3 of CPE portal v1
Step 4 of CPE portal v1
Step 5 of CPE portal v1
Submission confirmation of CPE portal v1
Overview of improvements
- Removal of confusing decision points
- Replacement of PDF Transcript with complete data table
- Transformation of unfriendly tiles with interactive list view
- Improved labels and instructions, feedback in proximity to interaction
- Reduce hops and redundant loading time, create easy to scan layout, provide consistent and clear action queues
Hifi Prototypes
Home screen & step 1 of v2 portal
Step 2 of v2 portal
Step 3 of v2 portal
Step 4 of v2 portal
Submission confirmation of v2 portal
Transcript view
CPE v2 usability tests
Learning process where real tasks are performed and observed to discover problems, needs and solutions.
- 5 Member Participants
- 4 Tasks
- Browse Dashboard
- Record CPE Credits
- Review CPE History
- Report Missing CPE
- Performed remotely on partially functional prototype on participant’s desktop
Test feedback
Overall, the layout and look and feel received positive feedback. Participants liked:
- List/table view of CPEs
- CPEs ordered by most recent date
- Column sorting
- “On behalf of” indicator
- Information bubble providing CPE rules
Incredible speed improvement
After the remodel, it was theoretically possible to record a CPE in the time it took the old portal to load.
Improved print view of transcripts
Previously, the system created a pdf rendering with very little control over visual styles or format. I refactored the code in Salesforce to use a custom print style sheet so that the transcript looked clean and was responsive in the browser, but printed perfectly on paper as well.
Before
After
Post-launch feedback
I looked at it today and it looks great! I think members will find it more useful.
New portal is excellent, so much easier to use, please relay thanks to all that worked on this.