Long story short
This app is a workforce management software solution for managing Guarding, Cleaning and Facilities Services teams.
The goal for this particular flow is to guide users (e.g. security guards, janitors) to go on a patrol/ cleaning tour and complete required tasks on site. And the app will document their activities to report to the admin side to generate their work report and payroll.
My role
I was the sole designer on this project. I worked closely with our Product Manager, Engineer Teams, as well as Customer Success Team on this project. I was responsible for research, design and usability testing in this project, and being the advocate for best UX practice.
Research
When I joined this project, we already had an initial design and some research done. So I started by conducting interviews with internal stakeholders to learn more about initiatives.
I later found we had a pretty good understanding of admin users, but the missing part was understanding of the base employees who are our direct user for the mobile app. It was understandable because all of our other applications are focused on the admin users with little to no direct interaction with the base employee.
To validate the current design, I advocated for reaching out to end users and doing usability testing before launching MVP.
Initial testing
Participants: Internal: 6 (Conducted on site by my manager)
Current users: 6 (Conducted by me and PM online)
Findings
- The required actions weren't clear enough. Users didn’t know what they needed to do for each step.
- The flow lacked confirmation and assurance on what was documented.
- Navigation had too many layers and users got confused about how to get back to the main task list.
- It took too many clicks to get through a tour, and it felt like too much work for the users.
Revisiting User Flow
After the testing, I synthesized the results and qualitative data, I then set up a meeting with the PM to revisit our journey map, and worked on how and where we might make it better.
To solve the problems addressed in testing, I suggested that instead of having the user browse different checkpoints, we should have a more linear path where we guide them directly from one point to another. And by doing that, we can not only reduce confusion, but we’ll also be able to save the users 2 steps for each checkpoint they visit.
And given the fact that a lot of our users need to visit a couple of dozen checkpoints, that’s a significant amount of time we could save for them.
Principles
To improve the current user flow, I led a workshop with stakeholders to revisit the user flow and came up with 3 design principles to guide the design:
Linear guidance on what is the next step, have the user more focused on the task
Instant and clear feedback on what was completed
Cleaner navigation hierarchy
Explorations
Following the principles I came up with, and the journey map I worked on with our PM, I did some more exploration on the UI. After talking to our end users, I found that in most cases, users need to go on a tour in a specific order as required, but sometimes they have the flexibility to decide their own path. A few approches I tried:
- Seperating tasks, having only one action per step
- Getting rid of the check point list page all together
- Moving check point list to a secondary place
Final Design
In the end we decided to go with an option that will cover all cases with consistency. A user can simply start a tour, click on the first checkpoint and be taken on a clear path. Or, they can stay on the list view to browse, or tap and go when they are on other sites. And by visually differentiating, users will clearly know the status of any checkpoint.
