Simplifying CDL requirements for small business owners

Content strategy for a complex, regulatory-heavy flow

At a glance

Summary

NJ OOI’s business.nj.gov partners with local agencies to simplify the process of starting a small business. As the UX content strategy lead for NJ OOI’s Tiger Team, I was tasked with:

Auditing NJ Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) permits already within our system and making updates as needed
Researching njmvc.gov, to identify permits we did not have yet and needed to add
Writing and publishing NJ MVC permit task screens, according to NJ OOI process
Tagging all permit task screens to relevant industries within our Netlify-based CMS.

One of my most challenging permits, the Commercial Driver's License (CDL) had lots of requirements that were difficult for users to navigate, with overlapping rules across classes, endorsements, and use cases. Existing guidance didn’t clearly help users identify what they needed.

Working alongside my PM and SMEs over at the NJ MVC, I drove a restructured, language-guided experience to reduce confusion while maintaining regulatory accuracy.

My roles

Content design lead

Collaborated with

NJ Motor Vehicle Commission SMEs (3)
Product managers (1)
UX designers (2)
Developers (1)
NJ OOI leadership (2)
Content design manager (1)

Duration

April to August 2025 (5 months)

Highlights

Systems-level IA for complex logic
Plain language translation of regulatory requirements
Multi-variant user flows mapped across several industries and use cases
Untangling CMS and technical constraints to create a simplified, frontend experience

Impact

Contributed to a platform supporting 200,000+ accounts and 65,000+ businesses
Improved clarity and completeness of CDL guidance, reducing risk of incorrect permit selection
Helped apply an existing questionnaire-based approach to simplify a complex CDL permit experience

Identifying the problem

CDL confusion - at njmvc.gov

According to our NJ MVC SMEs, their customers frequently struggled to navigate the CDL process due to gaps and inconsistencies in the existing guidance at njmvc.gov.

Key issues included:

Complex regulatory requirements
Difficulty distinguishing between 8 common CDL types, each with different tests and eligibility criteria

This led to:

Frustrated NJ MVC clients
Increased support call volume

At NJ OOI, the goal was to address these issues when designing the updated permit experience.

CDL confusion - at business.nj.gov

I had already identified an existing CDL permit task screen in our system. It was missing key information, such as:

Summaries of the 8 most common CDL types, which users must identify before preparing for required tests
Age and physical requirements for high-impact CDLs, such as Class C CDL with P and S Endorsements needed for school bus drivers
Specific knowledge and skills tests, which differed depending on the CDL needed
An email and phone number users could contact for support
The existing experience was only mapped to 2 of 9 relevant industries in our CMS, while a total of 53 industries still required evaluation

Missing information for task permits created potential regulatory and compliance risks for users, so this would have to be addressed in our update.

The original CDL permit screen

The biggest issue

We were relying on a single screen to communicate very dense, lengthy requirements for 8 different CDL types, without any guidance.

This was particularly problematic for users that were new to the experience entirely and may not even know which of the 8 CDL types they needed to prepare for. Users had no structured way to make the right decision.

Planning the solution

🎯 Strategic alignment

My PM and NJ OOI leadership wanted an improved CDL experience quickly, and were aware of the complexity behind simplifying the experience.

As a trade-off, I planned an improved CDL permit task experience, broken into two parts, to accomplish the following:

V1 - requirements and goals

Ensure regulatory accuracy for summary, eligibility criteria, application requirements, and all other identified, missing information
Correct mapping issues by auditing all 60+ industries for CDL eligibility
Requires no additional intervention, can be published quickly on my end

V2 - requirements and goals

Reduce complexity by designating pathways for various possible CDL permit experiences
Re-map to all relevant industries as needed
Requires product design and developer intervention

Content strategy v1 - Closing compliance gaps and industry tagging

Process

The goal with v1 was to add information missing from the original task screen, such as:

Summaries of the 8 CDL type definitions
Skills test requirements
Age and citizenship requirements, namely those required to legally operate passenger transport vehicles
Contact information

The result was a compliance-safe CDL task screen, but the amount of information visible now risked overwhelming users.

Screenshot 2026-03-05 at 12.58.45 PM.png

Industry mapping - Roadmap

Industries designated as “Roadmap” require the CDL as a core part of their business. They show up automatically on the user’s list of permits to get before opening their site in New Jersey.

Per research, I determined that 9 industries would need to be mapped to the CDL task screen, tagged in our Netlify CMS as "roadmap."

Industry mapping - Essential

Permit tasks designated as “Essential” are added to the user’s roadmap based on whether they answer “Yes” or “No” to a relevant question. These industries have a 50/50 chance of requiring the CDL for operation.

Per research, I determined that 7 industries would need to be mapped to the CDL task screen, and tagged in the CMS as "essential."

Industry mapping - Non-essential

Permit tasks designated as “Non-essential,” similar to Essential, are added to the user’s roadmap based on whether they answer “Yes” or “No” to a relevant question. These industries have a fairly low chance of requiring the permit, but it’s still possible.

Due to the lowered necessity, the Non-essential question shows up in the user’s profile after they’ve created their account, as opposed to their onboarding flow.

Per research, I determined that 9 industries would need to be mapped to the CDL task screen, and tagged in the CMS as "non-essential."

Content strategy v2 - Simplifying user flow and retagging new screens

Process

I worked with our UX designer and dev on a v2 CDL screen that further broke down all CDLs into categories, defined by logic-branching questionnaires.

This strategy aimed to keep the regulatory updates and added information from v1. Additionally, v2:

Included logic-based questionnaires to put users on specific pathways to individual CDL types (as much as possible), thereby simplifying cognitive load
Simplified the application criteria to account for individual CDL types and categories
Included design features such as sectional drop downs to further reduce cognitive overwhelm

Design collaboration

I also worked with my content design manager and a service designer, both of whom had worked on a previous complex permit that had several distinct use cases. They provided access to wireframes and decision logic used to create their questionnaire for this permit.

Since this permit had already been implemented by developers, providing a similar build on my end would help speed up our workflow. It meant that we would not have to completely reinvent the wheel.

Previous questionnaire-based experience for waste permit requirements

New CDL user flows and decision trees

This part was INSANELY hard.

I built multiple multiple decision trees and presented them with my PM and SMEs in our bi-weekly meetings to ensure the logic made sense and come to a consensus on which would be best for:

Our users, in terms of permit simplification
Our developers, in terms of lowest build lift
PMs and leadership, in terms of roadmap implementation

All the decision trees I built in FigJam

Screenshot 2026-03-22 at 11.35.16 AM.png

The final decision tree - CDL categories

Ultimately, feedback from everyone indicated it was best to break them down into 2 CDL categories, based on common use cases for each group of CDLs.

Category A - Hauling and towing

Subcategory 1 - Trailers and combo vehicles
- Class A,
- Class B,
- Class A with T Endorsement
Subcategory 2 - Tanks and cargo vehicles
- Class A, B or C with H Endorsement
- Class A or B with N Endorsement
- Class A or B with X Endorsement

Category B - Passenger transport

Subcategory 3 - Passenger vehicles
- Class B or C with P Endorsement
Subcategory 4 - School bus
- Class B or C with S and P Endorsements

CDL visual flows - Before (v1) and after (v2)

New UI screens - 2 questionnaires

In terms of UI screens, Categories A and B would represent 2 questionnaire screens that would show up in the user’s onboarding for relevant industries.

New UI screens - 4 permit screens

Depending on the user’s answers could generate any of the 4 permit screen possibilities:

Trailers and combo vehicles
Tanks and cargo vehicles
Passenger vehicles
School bus

The 4 permit task screens would also further simplify the user experience in getting a CDL by specifying more nuanced application requirements, such as specific skills tests required for hauling and towing vehicles that passenger vehicles did not need.

Industry mapping for v2

I had to take the roadmap, essential, and non-essential industries mapped for v1 and determine which, for each category, would be appropriate for passenger transport, hauling and towing, or both.

Prompt engineering

Mapping the v1 CDL across 62 industries according to whether it was a roadmap task, essential task, or non-essential task wasn’t easy. Doing so again with 2 new questionnaires was going to be a LOT of additional work!

To speed up my workflow, I engineered the following prompts to help narrow down with industries and sectors the CDL should be mapped to.

CDL v1 vs. v2 - Summary

🎯 V1 - Goals

Established foundational accuracy by ensuring all necessary information was implemented

Ensured all relevant onboarding users would still see a CDL permit screen in the interim to avoid compliance gaps

🎯 V2 - Goals

Addressed cognitive load and scannability
Allowed users to more readily navigate to their specific CDL needs by breaking the experience into 2 questionnaires, mapping to 1 of 4 task screens subcategories

The final product

Passenger transport demo

CDL task flow - v1

CDL task flow - v2

Reflections

If I were to reexamine this project today, here's what I'd do differently:

💡Usability testing

💡Contextual info

Ultimately, timelines did not allow for this. We were relying mostly on what our NJ MVC SMEs told us about common questions and complaints users had regarding the CDL.

I would also include visuals for each CDL type, allowing users to better understand common vehicles types requiring specific CDLs. Again, timelines did not allow for this.