BCCOHP Registrant Portal Modernization
As the regulatory body of 16,000 oral health professionals, BCCOHP is responsible for serving British Columbians by ensuring the highest standards of safety, competence, and patient-focused oral health care. The oral health professionals who are regulated by BCCOHP include, but are not limited to, certified dental hygienists, dentists and dental technicians.
It was incredibly rewarding to work as a UX designer on this project for BCCOHP. Through collaboration, both with my colleagues and the team members at BCCOHP, we were able to modernize the registrant portal to accommodate the growing needs of oral health professionals across British Columbia.
Background
BCCOHP Registrant Portal:
Who Does it Serve & How?
The BCCOHP registrant portal serves oral health professionals in British Columbia by providing a centralized platform for managing essential regulatory tasks. By facilitating access to online learning, and by providing clear pathways for registrants to keep their qualifications up to date—the portal supports continuous professional development for oral health practitioners. In addition to supporting registrants' practical needs, the portal also plays a critical role in ensuring that the public receives safe and competent oral health care. The registrant portal allows BCCOHP to effectively monitor and verify the eligibility of professionals to practice—therefore creating a more transparent and accountable system.
Oral Health Professionals in BC
6 types of oral health professionals are governed by BCCOHP: dental hygienists, certified dental assistants, dental therapists, dental technicians, denturists, and dentists.
Set Standards of Care
To become registered/certified with BCCOHP, oral health professionals must demonstrate the skills, qualifications, and knowledge that are necessary in order to provide safe and ethical care.
Access to Features & Information
Through the online portal, registrants and certified dental assistants have streamlined access to features that include: viewing and updating personal contact information, submitting payments online, sending and receiving messages, and renewing registration/certification.
Challenge
Registrant Resources—Online & Streamlined
In order to best serve registrants and their evolving needs, the BCCOHP registrant portal required an expansion and modernization of its existing functionalities. A key focus of this project was to create a more robust and user-friendly platform, and to ensure a seamless user experience for all BCCOHP registrants, whether they are new or returning. To achieve this goal, our team sought to optimize the design of the portal to facilitate efficient completion of registration, renewal, online learning, and payment processes. Through strategic design updates and platform advancements, the BCCOHP registrant portal aims to empower registrants and administrators alike, fostering a more responsive and user-centric registration ecosystem.
High Level Goals
1.
Expand and elevate the functionalities of the BCCOHP online registrant portal.
2.
Ensure that all registrants, new and returning, are able to complete their registration, renewal, online learning, and make payments by using the portal.
3.
Streamline the process of establishing which registrants are eligible vs. ineligible to practice.
My Role
I worked as a UX designer on the BCCOHP registrant portal project—in collaboration with a project manager and team of developers. During my involvement in this project, I was responsible for implementing feature additions, which included the vaccination status declaration. This became an important addition to the registrant portal, especially upon the release of the March 2022 vaccination mandate deadline—affecting all regulated health professionals in British Columbia.
Design Details
Everything—Componentized
By leveraging Figma components and styles throughout my wireframing process, I was able to optimize my workflow efficiency—while ensuring consistency and ease of maintenance across the design of desktop pages for the registrant portal. This approach not only allows for an expedited iteration process, but it also enables me to adapt designs swiftly and seamlessly to meet evolving project requirements, and to ultimately deliver cohesive and polished user experiences.
Component Library
Highlighted below—a small sample of the components that I created in Figma, as part of the design system for my re-creation of the registrant portal wireframes.
Styles
Alongside the creation of a component library, I also harnessed the power of Figma Styles—in order to increase efficiency and to ensure consistency throughout my design and wireframing process.
Wireframes
All Tracked. All Tidy:
Documenting the Details
From low to high fidelity wireframes—every iteration is documented and organized within a centralized Figma file. The result is a clear, at-a-glance view of how the designs progressed through feedback, refinement, and decision-making over the course of my re-creation of the registrant portal project.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Low fidelity wireframing was a key step in shaping the user experience of the BCCOHP registrant portal. Using Figma, I was able to rapidly explore layout options, test structural ideas, and iterate quickly without the noise of full visual design. This approach allowed me to focus on hierarchy and flow—ensuring that the foundational UX was strong before moving into high fidelity design. The simplicity of these wireframes made them especially useful for stakeholder alignment, as they encouraged feedback on core interactions and content priorities—rather than the visual styling of the portal.
Wireframes
High-Fidelity Designs
After a review with my project manager and the team members at BCCOHP, I was given the green light to proceed with the creation of high-fidelity wireframes. These wireframes included pages, such as the Registrant Profile, Online Learning Plan, Payments, Calendar, Messages, Reinstatement, and Renewal. By investing in this level of detail, our team was able to set the foundation for a smoother handoff—enabling stakeholders to fully visualize the structure, functionality, and visual design of the modernized BCCOHP registrant portal, before moving into production.
Prototyping
Making Payments
Through the Portal
Seen below: A functional prototype that I created in Figma, to demonstrate the visual design and behaviour of the online payment portal—featured within the modernized registrant portal. This intuitive payment system streamlines transactions, allowing users to access the payments tab from the left-side menu with ease. Users can view all outstanding fees, understand associated charges, and conveniently select multiple fees to be paid within a single transaction. The portal also supports saving payment details for future use, ensuring a smoother experience over time. Before processing a payment, users can review their selected fees and total charges. After a payment has been processed, a status banner notifies users whether a transaction was successful, or requires further action, followed by the generation of a detailed receipt.
Reflections
Looking Back,
Moving Forward
The BCCOHP Registrant Portal project provided a valuable opportunity to design within a high-impact, regulatory environment—where usability and accessibility were fundamental to success. As a UX/UI designer, I strengthened my ability to balance complex user needs with system-level requirements, while working cross-functionally with developers, a project manager, and stakeholders at BCCOHP.
A key learning was the importance of designing flexible systems that accommodate current project requirements and future policy changes. One standout feature I was responsible for was the implementation of the vaccination status declaration, launched in alignment with BC’s March 2022 provincial mandate. The urgency of this addition required fast iteration cycles and seamless integration into the existing user experience of the portal—all of which sharpened my skills in rapid design adaptation and stakeholder communication.
Using Figma, I built a reusable component library and created a cohesive set of styles from the ground up, significantly accelerating my iteration velocity and ensuring design consistency across dozens of high-fidelity wireframes.
Ultimately, the modernization of the registrant portal helped to streamline high-value tasks, such as payments, renewals, and online learning—for over 16,000 registrants. From improving usability for returning users to supporting BCCOHP administrators in verifying eligibility to practice, the impact of our work was both measurable and meaningful.
This project challenged me to be more proactive in initiating design critiques and seeking feedback early; it also emphasized the importance of designing with future-proofing in mind—anticipating scalability and the introduction of new workflows. I’m excited to bring all that I’ve learned from the BCCOHP project into future roles within fast-paced design environments.