My new featured project
Employee - Visitor Management System with Face and Temperature Scanning for Access Control During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The Employee - Visitor Management System (EVMS) is an initiative by Seventh Sense to use facial recognition to grant access to people visiting private buildings or companies instead of disclosing personally identifiable information such as NRIC/FIN. The system includes an admin web portal for facilities managers and company administrators to monitor check-in/check-outs, and a no-contact Android tablet application for facial recognition and temperature scanning.
Background
The Employee - Visitor Management System (EVMS) started with the initiative to use face recognition for access control, replacing disclosure of your NRIC/FIN when visiting private buildings or office spaces. The Personal Data Protection Commission passed a guideline on 31 August 2018 that stated collection, use or disclosure of national IDs will not be allowed anymore. Once employers realized the utility of the management system for visitors, they wanted to use the system for their employees as well. From the purpose of managing just the visitors, the demand of using it to manage employees became evident.
With the rise of the number of COVID-19 cases, Singapore has required everyone to check in via SafeEntry whenever they visit establishments to help with contact tracing. With this requirement, we had to make changes to the current flow and especially the tablet application; it needed to be contactless.
My role and team members
I. EVMS Admin Portal and Registration App
Project role: Lead UX/UI Designer and Product Owner
Other team members: UI Designer, Visual Designer, Scrum Master, Developers
Tools used: Slack, Jira, GitLab, Adobe XD, Sketch, Google Meet
Worked with the two third-party designers in the early stages of the project and designed the mobile onboarding application and health and travel declaration web forms to replace the registration and face scan on a regular tablet.
II. EVMS Tablet App (Thermal7)*
Project role: UX/UI Designer
Other team members: Android Develop
Tools used: GitLab, Sketch Zoom
Designed the new no-contact, face and temperature scanning application flow and interface.
*The EVMS tablet application for face and temperature scanning was later named as “Thermal7”
Problem statement
How can facilities managers and company administrators manage visitors and their employees without them disclosing their NRIC/FIN during this pandemic?
The process
Research, user stories, journey maps and sprint planning
We didn’t perform formal user interviews, but instead, we asked our stakeholders about the current process flow with their biometric products during ideation meetings and demos as they already have their own set of requirements. We also had to rely on observations of how processes are done in different establishments, especially within the Central Business District area of Singapore where big corporations are located and different check-in processes occur. After gathering information from them we conducted a survey of which features companies would prefer to have. To kick off the project, a design sprint planning must be done. I worked with the Scrum Master, from the third party in India, who was also their Project Team Lead, based on the user stories I had created.
Figure 1 Sample of the survey form
Figure 4.2 Creation of user stories on Jira
Figure 2 Updating a user story by a brief description and assigning the task.
User flows, wireframes, and mock-up screens
I reviewed all wireframes the designer created and made necessary changes to the flow.
Figure 3 Sketches of screens and flow discussions
Figure 4 The flow when the “invited guest” (visitor) arrives at the location and registers on the tablet
After wireframes were finalised, I worked with the third party visual designer on the theming and packaging the look of the system, reviewing the prototype and making necessary changes.
Figure 5 Choosing colors for the entire system based on the brand colors of the company
Figure 6 Mock screens of the system of different modules showing the flow
Testing, iterations, the contactless flow and the challenges
When the government mandated restrictions during COVID-19 pandemic circuit breaker we had to change our flows. By this time, another client had shown interested in this app and wanted to work with us.
From the previous flow, visitors have the option to register on a tablet at the frontdesk, but now they have to scan a QR code at the location with their mobile phones, key in their details, and fill out health and travel declaration forms. Their identity will be then be verified when they scan their face on the no-touch tablet, and get their temperature scanned.
Figure 7 The check-in flow for visitors
Figure 8 The check-in flow for employees
As employees have already been onboarded by their company they will only have to scan the SafeEntry QR code and fill out the registration form.
An example of challenge encountered
Building lobbies or gates can easily get crowded when employees arrive and check in during peak hours. How do we make sure people follow safe distancing measures and avoid the lobby getting crowded?
From employee check-in flow (Figure 8), after an employee scans the SafeEntry QR code they are checked in to the location they’re visiting. Next, they would have to scan the health and travel declaration QR code to fill out the form. From visitor’s check-in flow (Figure 6.1), before scanning health declaration QR code, they still have to scan another QR code to register as a guest. We found that employees and visitors would crowd the lobby while finishing all the forms as clients provide physical QR codes while they wait to get their face and temperature scanned.
Actions taken:
Reviewed the forms to see if some fields are still required with the new flow and COVID-19 regulations so we can make it even shorter and easy to fill. For the new client, visitors aren’t required to get an appointment prior to visiting the location, but they are required to do a SafeEntry check-in and have health and travel declaration complete.
Checked if we can do SafeEntry check-in by filling out just one form as well as registering visitors. The developer had to make changes on the server where NRIC/FIN of both employees and visitors are submitted to SafeEntry for check-in together with declaration forms.
Redesigned the form to include NRIC/FIN field, for registration (for visitors), and submission to SafeEntry, and health and travel declaration.
Later on, a QR code/barcode scanner was integrated to verify the person who has scanned the face on the tablet and the person who has done the declaration form.
Redesigned the flow by allowing employees to fill out the declaration form after they’ve done the face and temperature scan on the tablet as they are already onboarded and registered to the system.
More testing and the outcome
Below are the outcomes of all the iterations that we have made:
For client 1, visitors are still required to scan a QR code to register, but with a short form that checks them in to SafeEntry.
Figure 9 The new check-in flow for visitors of client 1
Figure 10 The new check-in flow for visitors of client 2
Figure 11 Employees of client 2 checks in with Thermal7 app
Figure 12 The new check-in flow for employees
The EVMS Admin Portal and Thermal7 Android Application is continuously improving as we all adjust to the new normal and accept the constant changes brought by the pandemic. Just recently, a new rule has been set to only use TraceTogether App or tokens for SafeEntry check-ins, so we had to adapt the flow to this new rule. Iterations are ongoing as well as bug fixes as there is still instability brought by the hardware devices in the system.