The Trade & Label Office* came to us with a challenge: industry members were struggling to understand, navigate, and comply with the permitting and compliance process. My team worked closely with their internal staff and external stakeholders to research pain points, co-create solutions, and design a future-state prototype for EasyPermit*, a more intuitive, accessible, and human-centered system for industry members.
The Trade & Label Office helps regulate the alcohol and tobacco industries—but their digital systems hadn’t caught up with the pace of modern users. Licensing, label approvals, and operational changes were all bottlenecked by confusing processes, outdated interfaces, and a lack of transparency. As they began thinking about their long-term modernization efforts, they brought our team in to dig into the end-to-end experience and propose what a better future might look like.
The Trade & Label Office helps regulate the alcohol and tobacco industries—but their digital systems hadn’t caught up with the pace of modern users. Licensing, label approvals, and operational changes were all bottlenecked by confusing processes, outdated interfaces, and a lack of transparency. As they began thinking about their long-term modernization efforts, they brought our team in to dig into the end-to-end experience and propose what a better future might look like.
Project Context
Client: Trade & Label Office* (Alias)
Product: EasyPermit* (Alias)
Timeline: 4 months
Team: Senior Service Designer (me), UX Researcher, CX Strategist/Project Manager, and embedded client stakeholders
Goal: Improve EasyPermit and provide actionable insights to evolve the service post-launch with a futurist wireframe and a clear pathway to improved services.
My Role
I served as the Senior Service Designer on a small, collaborative team. Working alongside a UX designer, a CX strategist, and a federal client team, I led co-creation efforts, facilitated discovery and synthesis, and translated industry pain points into actionable prototypes and strategic recommendations.
I was responsible for:
•Designing and facilitating 11 one-hour co-creation sessions with industry members
•Capturing and synthesizing qualitative insights in Miro
•Creating lightweight journey maps based on 4 user archetypes
•Contributing to service blueprints and CX maturity assessments
•Building a mid-to-high fidelity prototype using USWDS in Figma
•Framing a roadmap to guide future implementation and investment
The Challenge
Industry members described the current process as opaque, confusing, and full of hidden traps. Internal TTB teams struggled too—juggling unclear submissions, fragmented workflows, and tools that weren’t built for collaboration.
Common pain points:
•Unclear requirements and terminology
•Frequent submission errors that caused rework
•Lack of status updates or personalized guidance
•Fragmented internal systems and siloed roles
•Delayed and unclear communications from client to end-user
We needed to fix the front-end experience and the behind-the-scenes delivery model—without breaking what already worked.
Our Approach
Research
•11 co-creation sessions with real industry members
•Interviews with TTB employees across departments
•Current-state journey mapping and workflow analysis
•Archetypes developed based on distinct user needs
Synthesis
•We identified where friction clustered and what good could look like:
•Users want transparency, not handholding
•Visual cues and inline help > dense FAQs
•Internal teams need visibility, coordination, and clarity
Prototyping
We developed a future-state prototype in Figma, using USWDS components to keep things real.
The design:
The design:
•Tailored onboarding flows for different user types
•Inline progress tracking, secure messaging, and clear guidance
•A staff-facing dashboard to track submissions and flag issues early
Key Insights
•First-time and returning users need tailored onboarding
•Feedback loops matter more than speed—users just want to know what’s happening
•Internal complexity shows up in the user experience
•Clarity reduces help desk load and increases trust
•Co-creating with users builds better, faster alignment
The Future-State Design
Our prototype focused on clarity, confidence, and connectedness.
What we delivered:
•A redesigned permit application experience that adapts to user context
•Smart content that explains why, not just what
•New service touchpoints like a timeline view and messaging portal
•An internal dashboard concept for TTB teams to track and triage work
•It’s not just a better interface—it’s a blueprint for a better service.
Impact
•Gave TTB a tangible, testable vision for modernizing its services
•Empowered internal teams to see and solve systemic issues
•Created momentum for user-centered design inside the agency
•Participants—especially industry members—felt seen, heard, and energized
This prototype is now informing product roadmaps, funding conversations, and internal service improvement efforts.
What We Delivered
We didn’t just hand over a research report—we gave them a map to build the future. Our team delivered:
•A customer journey map with actionable service improvements
•A high-fidelity prototype for EasyPermit to enable faster, clearer user flows
•A strategic roadmap to help leadership prioritize improvements and advocate for funding
•Four user archetypes to help internal teams empathize with and serve different customer types
•Industry best practices and experiences that trained agency employees in service design and customer experience principles.
Reflections
This project reminded me why I love service design—it’s messy, people-driven, and it requires empathy at every level. Working with both industry members and internal staff meant holding multiple truths: what worked for one group often frustrated another. Bridging that gap through research, co-creation, and prototyping was incredibly rewarding.
We left the Trade & Label Office with a more confident understanding of their customers—and a much clearer path forward. One of the stakeholders told us:
“This was one of the first times we’ve felt truly seen.
The work was not only smart, it was deeply empathetic.”
The work was not only smart, it was deeply empathetic.”
Service Design | User Research | Government CX | Cross-Functional Workshops | Journey Mapping | Strategic Facilitation | Public Sector | Emergency Services UX | Streamlining industry-facing digital services | Creating future-state prototypes for complex workflows | Co-creation and participatory design in government contexts | Qualitative user research (interviews, synthesis, workshop facilitation) | Prototyping with Figma and U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) | Service recovery design | Customer experience strategy | Policy-informed product design | Data-informed decision-making |