All work

Visitor Management System

A web platform for secure, real-time visitor tracking across multi-tenant government and corporate facilities.

Role
Lead Product Designer, GX Informatics
Client
GX Informatics
Industry
GovTech · Facility security
Year
2025
Visitor Management System dashboard on a laptop against neon light lines, showing visitor stat cards and recent check-ins
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Project overview

The Visitor Management System (VMS) is a web platform for facilities to track, manage and audit visitor access, from pre-scheduled appointments through check-in, check-out and historical reporting.

It's designed for security officers, front-desk administrators and facility managers in multi-tenant buildings, government offices and enterprise campuses, and replaces paper logbooks and scattered spreadsheets.

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Context & problem

“We can't tell who's in the building right now, who they're visiting, or how long they've been here.”

Common pain point from facility security teams

Most facilities in Nigeria's government and corporate sector still rely on paper visitor logs: illegible entries, no audit trail, no way to know who is on the premises, and no accountability when something goes wrong. Appointments were coordinated over phone calls and WhatsApp.

Before and after comparison of visitor management with and without VMS
Before VMS and after.
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Who it serves

Security officers

Checking people in while paying attention to everything else around them.

Front-desk administrators

Managing appointments and visitor records.

Facility managers

Need a live view of who is on site.

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Project goals

  1. Know who is on the premises at any moment.
  2. Create a trustworthy audit trail.
  3. Make check-in fast enough for a busy gate.
  4. Prevent cross-tenant mistakes in shared buildings.
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Research & discovery

Designing for the front desk as it really works.

The starting point was how visitors were already handled: paper logbooks at reception, no link to the person being visited, no time tracking, and appointments arranged over phone calls and WhatsApp.

Designing for security officers meant designing for split attention. They check people in while watching the door, answering questions and tracking who is still on site, so every screen had to work without their full focus.

Who is in the building right now?

Became the dashboard's four live counts: total, today, currently checked in, checked out.

When did they actually arrive?

Became an automatic, uneditable check-in time.

Which badge belongs to which tenant?

Became tag management, added mid-project after feedback from the security team.

VMS tag management panel listing physical visitor badges for one tenant, with available and assigned counts
Tag management, added after security-team feedback.
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Constraints

Officers work with split attention. Physical tags are shared across tenants. Times must be trustworthy for audits.

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Product decisions

Slide-over forms

The check-in drawer keeps the dashboard visible, so the occupancy count is always in view.

Colour-coded numbers, no charts

Orange for currently active, blue for completed, ink for totals. The numbers are the data.

Auto-timestamped check-in

Removes backdating risk and fatigue errors. Shown, but not editable.

Four appointment states

Pending, Honoured, Cancelled, Completed. Two states would collapse an important operational signal.

Tags filtered by company

Prevents cross-tenant tag allocation while hiding the logic from the officer.

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Information architecture & workflows

  1. Step 01Dashboard
  2. Step 02Check-ins
  3. Step 03Appointments
  4. Step 04Visitor records
  5. Step 05Users
  6. Step 06Tenants
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Exploration & iterations

Choosing between options, and where I'd go next.

Slide-over panel instead of a separate check-in page

The form opens over the dashboard rather than replacing it.

WhyOfficers keep the occupancy count in view while processing a new arrival.

Four appointment states instead of two

Pending, Honoured, Cancelled and Completed.

WhyCollapsing them to two would lose an operational signal that audits and analytics need.

Numbers instead of charts

Colour-coded stat cards: orange for active, blue for completed, ink for totals.

WhyFast decisions need no extra interpretation.

Tags filtered by company

The tag field only shows badges for the visitor's tenant.

WhyPrevents cross-tenant mistakes without exposing the logic to the officer.

Next I'd explore a tablet view for officers at the gate, one global search across sections, and a self-service pre-registration flow so visitors can book before they arrive.

Annotated VMS check-in slide-over: phone number first, optional laptop number, tag number filtered by company, and an automatic, uneditable time-in
The check-in slide-over, annotated.
Concept comparing today's per-section search with a proposed global command palette opened with Cmd+K
Exploring global search: the gap and the fix.
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Final solution

VMS dashboard with four live stat cards and a table of recent check-ins
Dashboard: four live stat cards and recent activity.
VMS profile management screen with tenant and tag details
Profile and tag management.
VMS login screen for facility staff
Sign-in for facility staff.
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Collaboration & implementation

Handed off to development with annotated specs and component documentation.

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Results & evidence

  1. 64 screens designed across 6 core flows.
  2. A full design system: colour, type, components, spacing.
  3. Tag management added mid-project from security-team feedback.
  4. Replaced a paper-based process that had no accountability trail.
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Lessons & reflections

Design for the real operating context

The slide-over panel is the strongest choice in the product because it accepts that many things demand an officer's attention at once.

What I'd push further

A tablet gate view, global search, and a self-service pre-registration flow.