Professionals in regulated fields such as medicine, finance, and law are required to maintain numerous certifications. To date, these certifications (each with its own issuer and expiration) are maintained haphazardly where expiration dates are easily overlooked or forgotten. I worked with a former paramedic to design and develop CertPocket, a mobile solution that allows professionals to track and renew all of their certifications and expirations.
My Role
- Full prototype design and refinement
- Beta test and concept validation with target users
- Collaborating with mobile developers to build, test, and deploy to app stores
- Business modeling
- Product roadmap development
Napkin sketches to prototype
Much of the initial brainstorming was done during informal sessions with a paramedic veteran of 10 years. Brandon would articulate problems that he and his colleagues encountered while dealing with medical certifications. I would then sketch potential solutions and identify product opportunities.
We developed a survey that was sent out to around a hundred past and current paramedics. Information we sought to gather included:
- Personal and work mobile device usage patterns
- Notable pain points with medical certification and renewal
- Feedback on potential design directions
- Common methods of seeking out recertification classes (both online and in person)
After multiple rounds of feedback and reiteration, we sourced a developer and began technical implementation of the app.
The baseline functionality the MVP offers users is an organized view of their certifications, ordered by expiration date. The expiration date format can be toggled between a countdown and a date. Each certification row expands to show images of the certification that the user takes when the certification is added to the app.
Vision and roadmap
Given the app’s initial ability to remind users’ of expiring certifications, we identified a potential opportunity to extend the application to help users browse renewal options. We envisioned a monetizable feature that would allow users to view and browse a marketplace from where recertification courses could be purchased.
