Improving employee clock-in times, which increased customer retention by 200%
TL;DR
Challenge
With a limited timeline, there was only so much research that could be done to improve the app while still factoring in the time needed to design and implement any potential new features. Decisions had to be made with these factors taken into account.
Role
Sole Product Designer
Tasks
- Problem Framing
- Validating
- Visual Design
- User Testing
- User Research
- Design Handoff
Outcome
- 85% of users found it easier to keep up to date with changes at work
- Clock-in times were 55% more accurate.
- Reduced manual clock-ins
- Increased engagement with new potential customers.
Background
The Staff Genius is a platform that allows you to shift schedule your staff, create a roster, track hours, deploy rules and manage your team from anywhere. The mobile app is a part of the Staff Genius solution. The solution designed a couple of years ago now feels outdated. The team in charge of the product wanted to revamp the clock-in experience and update the look and feel of the product.
Interviews & Surveys
Who are the users?
From factory workers to office employees, I realized that many people used the previous app for their daily clock-ins. Therefore, it was essential to understand better the range of issues they faced while using the app.
Learning Insights #1
Employees feel like clock-ins took longer.
Some employees felt that it was easier to manually clock in as the app added a level of complexity to their workflow. Employees feel like clock-ins took longer.
Learning Insights #2
Technical Affinity: Lack of Smartphone Usage
Many employees, especially the older users, did not have a smartphone. So interacting with the app was a strange/new occurrence for them.
Learning Insights #3
Technology Aversion: Bad Experiences
Some employees were critical of the previous app due to its look and feet and their earlier experiences.
Learning Insights #4
Lack of Notifications
Most employees felt dissatisfied by the lack of notification/updates on shift changes and other updates such as clock in and clock out times.
Building Empathy
I created simple user personas based on the collected data to use as guides when making design decisions and a base to defend these decisions when presenting to stakeholders.
Opportunity
How might we speed up employee clock-in while keeping the app as simple as possible?
Product Analysis
As a part of the product analysis, I created a quick overview of the sections that need to be worked on within the app (in red) and possible solutions for these problems (in green).
Information Architecture
After doing some base analysis on the app's functionality, I created multiple variations of the previous architecture to test the efficiency of reaching the clock-in section of the application.
Wireframes
After iterations on the low fidelity wireframe, I created a design that allowed various users to sign up and clock in quickly.
Visual Guide
I created a visual guide based on the branding of the Staff Genius logo to create the high fidelity designs and continue testing quickly.
Final Product
The latest design of the Staff Genius Mobile App focuses on simplifying the clock in the process. It has stripped away some of the previous additional features that were deemed unnecessary and added features the users have long required, such as notifications. Achieving my overall goal of creating an app that could be used by any type of employee and improve their productivity.
Next Steps
There is still a lot to be explored with the app. What if employees could view company documents? What if the Shift View gave more details on which coworkers had the same shift? These are just some of the questions I would expand on if I were to revisit the app.
What I learned
Learning Insights #1
More features ≠ Better Product
The additional complexity of the app with the extra features such as location history and app data did not improve the overall experience. I learned that it is better to focus on the core features before adding new ones.
Learning Insights #2
Visual design affects user perception
Users reacted to the new design favourably based on the visual improvements I added. In some cases, even when there was something that they found confusing, they chose the interaction over the previous design
