Identity Theft Report
human-centered design | talking to users | service design | visual design
Federal Trade Commission
Role: Lead Designer on a multi-disciplinary HCD team
The Challenge: How might we make it easier for identity theft victims to report the crime to law enforcement and businesses?
We spoke with people who touch this issue from all angles: identity theft victims, federal and local law enforcement, credit bureaus, fraud departments within businesses, and victim advocates.
By talking to victims and stakeholders we learned that the form the FTC provided to victims had the potential for significant improvements in
credibility,
flexibility, and
authentication
First, we strengthened credibility by adding the official agency seal and updating the design to be consistent with the branding on IdentityTheft.gov
After several iterations, we proposed to retire the blank print form entirely and develop a new Identity Theft Report that is only produced after a victim completes a report to the FTC. This was a critical change as the new form now carries the weight of an official report to a law enforcement agency and is a more effective tool.
This approach also allowed us to:
improve readability by removing instructional text from the final report
introduce flexibility by removing sections of the report when they did not apply to the individual’s case
establish authentication by issuing a unique report ID.
Our proposal was significant, impacting many stakeholders, but was readily accepted because its usefulness and impact were validated by our research. The new form launched in October 2016.