Designing for clarity and trust case study

Turning a complex eligibility check into a clear, dependable workflow

A redesigned due diligence tool for the UK Cabinet Office, built with GOV.UK and Salesforce to support confident, high-stakes decisions

Service design-led project aligning user needs, policy constraints, and delivery realities
service design
gov.uk
design systems
accessibility
product and service design lead
summary | full

At a glance

Redesigned a complex due diligence tool for UK Cabinet Office

Turned a clunky online eligibility tool and Excel workarounds into a clear GOV.UK and Salesforce workflow

  • Four weeks from kick-off to build-ready service flows
  • One accessible tool that works for every user role
  • Role: product and service design lead (research, service flows, interaction design)
  • Tools: Figma, GOV.UK Design System, Salesforce, Jira

Modernised how central government checks eligibility

Role: product and service design lead (research, service flows, interaction design)

Transformed a complex due diligence process into something calmer, clearer and build-ready in four weeks

Brief
  • Four-week engagement with the Cabinet Office
  • Build a due diligence tool inside GOV.UK and Salesforce
  • Move a research wireframe into a clear, compliant, build-ready prototype
  • Deliver something users could trust, and devs could pick up with confidence
Problem
  • Users relied on a clunky tool that introduced friction and reduced confidence
  • Existing workflow lacked clarity, feedback and consistency
  • A static wireframe outlined structure but needed to become a coherent product
  • High-stakes decisions needed something traceable, consistent and dependable
Process
  • Turned the wireframe into a faithful, clickable prototype in week one
  • Refined journeys so flows felt natural and consistent
  • Week-three testing drove inline edits, clearer summaries, documentation and confidence scoring
  • Designed to GOV.UK standards and WCAG AA from the start
  • Worked with devs in week four to ensure everything was buildable inside Salesforce
Users depended on a dated tool that slowed processes
The challenge was to reshape that high-risk workflow into something calm, clearer and dependable in just four weeks

Path

Week 1:
Foundation

A rapid prototype exposed gaps early and set the structure for clearer, calmer user flows

Week 2:
Empathy

Grounded journeys in real user realities so everything felt consistent and intuitive

Week 3:
Iteration

Daily user testing shaped focused refinements, steadily strengthening the product with each iteration

Week 4:
Hand-over

Kept design and development in sync, checking buildability as we went so nothing became a dead end

Breakthrough

Users didn’t need more features, they needed more confidence

The prototype helped people move faster, resolve issues in flow, and make sense of what the data was telling them. Inline edits and instant feedback kept them focused and in control

"I spent hours trying to manually fix records in an Excel file. If I could've done it like this, it would've saved me a whole load of time"

A user in testing
Deliverables: validated service flows ready for GOV.UK, WCAG and Salesforce build
Smart search

Search patterns streamlined single and bulk lookups, with inline results reducing context switching

Confidence scoring

Visual indicators showed result reliability, helping users prioritise and move with certainty

Built-in documentation

Observation fields and organisation supported traceability, with no side spreadsheets or lost context

Tested in real time

Every state and journey was tested in prototyping, from edge cases to errors, shaped to work in Salesforce

Results

The prototype gave teams a compliant, reusable blueprint that helped users move faster with fewer errors and more confidence in their decisions

Four weeks to build-ready

A user-tested prototype, verified with devs to ensure it could be built

Built for every user

Happy, unhappy and edge cases covered, with flows shaped to work consistently across WCAG AA and Salesforce standards

One system, many teams

Clear, cohesive journeys designed to support multiple Government Departments and Arms Length Bodies with confidence

Need complex workflows to feel simple?

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Learnings

Clarity, traceability and calm flows turned a high risk process into something teams could rely on under pressure

Trust

Design for trust, not just task completion

More context, confidence signals and recovery paths calmed users working under scrutiny

Constraints

Constraints can sharpen the product

GOV.UK, WCAG and Salesforce limits pushed clearer hierarchy and reusable, safe-to-roll-out patterns

Prototyping

Prototype to think, not just to deliver

Realistic flows under pressure exposed gaps early and steered daily iteration

Accessibility

Accessibility is a design decision, not a checklist

Contrast, focus and structure made complex due diligence readable and defensible

Tools

Figma
SFMC Salesforce
VS Code
Jira

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