Envoy Mobile
A mobile-friendly version of the web app for foreign nationals
After launching a major visual overhaul for the web platform, the next focus for the product team was to create a complementary mobile experience.
While HR users would continue to use the web platform on their office computers, there was significant demand for a mobile app so foreign national users could benefit from the following:
Status Updates & Push Notifications
For foreign nationals, the status of their work visa is extremely important. It not only affects where they can work, but also where their family can live. A very large part of the web platform’s traffic comes from foreign nationals checking their case statuses.
I made this a focal point for the mobile app. The home screen is a stream of updates with important case milestones, reminders, and links.
Instead of having to log in on a computer, foreign national users can pull up the mobile app and easily see the current status of their visa application.
Push notifications mean the user sees updates right away as opposed to in-app notifications on desktop.
Mobile Communications
A major selling point for the Envoy platform is the ability for foreign nationals to talk with an immigration attorney about their visa application.
Mobile apps do messaging as well as desktop messaging, arguably better. The paradigm of selecting from a list of thread thumbnails to view a conversation is familiar to virtually every user.
Often times, the comm center is used to request information from the foreign nationals. Mobile communication combined with push notifications lead to faster responses from users — one less thing that can keep a visa application from progressing smoothly.
Profile & Document Upload
It’s important for foreign nationals to keep their immigration information and documentation up to date for compliance reasons. The mobile app makes this maintenance significantly more convenient.
For example, if a user travels outside of the U.S. while on a visa, they can log the dates in the mobile app and it will update their I-94 expiration.
A mobile app also makes uploading documents to their profile super simple. They just need to take a photo with their phone camera and the image is uploaded automatically.
When documents are uploaded, Optical Character Recognition enables the app to populate profile data without any user input.