How can we improve employee productivity?
Vineyard App Camp (VAC) partners with 400+ schools to teach 1000+ specialized classes by hiring non-traditional teachers.
Directors (VAC employees) use a SaaS platform with 8000+ teachers in the system to manage all logistics
This is a responsive web application, therefore the bulk of this case study will focus on web with some adjacent examples of the mobile experience.
My role
Sole designer, UX research & design
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Miro, Whimsical, ChatGPT
Team
1 product designer (me)
1 Non-technical co-founder
1 Engineering co-founder
The organization
Employees were growing increasingly frustrated with the tooling required for their job. They wasted time looking for information, struggled to guess what visual elements represented, and lost out on potential hires.
To address this, I led a complete transformation of the app, starting by identifying the root problems and overhauling workflows and app design.
The result was an intuitive experience, even for new and non-tech savvy employees that allowed them to close more contracts.
“it's a little clunky, that's a nice way of putting it”
Live dashboard before redesign
Over 20 steps were cut out of 3 workflows, including consolidating flows for a more seamless experience
Percentage of time saved for sub assignment flow based off user interviews and usability testing
Wasted time
“takes a minute to two minutes [to load], which might not seem like a lot of time, but when you're on a call with another Director it can be so cumbersome”
Clients lack trust in VAC
“feels very ancient and it feels a little bit nonprofessional”
”a lot of what we do is making sure we don't seem like a scam”
Disrupts workflow
“really challenging to not have to do things twice, you know I really try to optimize my time”
Employees are constantly dealing with a bug-riddled app that has no system feedback when things don’t go according to plan. In addition, they have to work extra hard to appear legitimate when reaching out to schools and potential teachers.
A research-based redesign can help reduce cognitive load for employees while cutting down on task time
Reduce steps to save time
Reduce number of steps for each workflows and organize information in a more intuitive manner so users can find information easily
Increase trust in actions
Present appropriate feedback immediately when there are system errors and provide suggestions to recover from errors
Goal 1: Simplify workflows
Directors struggled to efficiently complete tasks due to a convoluted user flows and inconsistent app behavior. Different users used different flows to complete similar tasks, creating confusion in communication and training.
My goal was to simplify user flows to speed up training and improve efficiency.
Goal 2: Extract and organize important info
Directors struggled with finding important information on the page.
My goal was to organize and improve the information architecture related to their main tasks, so that they weren't wasting time clicking on multiple items before finding what they were looking for.
Goal 1
I identified 3 primary workflows every Director had in common that would make the biggest impact, consulting with stakeholders through my decision making.
Goal 1: Simplify workflows
Screenshots of original flow
My changes allow users to find information and take action they expect and need without confusing navigation
Before
Users have to use a button to navigate to attendance checks that shows no indication attendance checks are part of the page
After
Directors can now update attendance status directly from the home page
Areas to improve user flow:
A: Eliminate extra step to view attendance
B: Allow Director to track teacher’s attendance correctly on platform
Goal 1: Simplify workflows
Requesting and assigning subs are broken into disjointed flows
I streamlined the 3 flows involved for substitute assignment ingo a single flow and reduced the overall process by over 10 steps.
Requesting and assigning subs are broken into disjointed flows
Before
The original page used text that was too small to read, had inconsistent us of font for links and text, an inefficient layout, and unclear actions.
After
Goal 1: Simplify workflows
Before
After
Before
Directors struggled to find where they needed to go on the app to make teacher assignments
After
Reducing steps and clear elements allowed Directors to easily navigate to teacher assignments.
Goal 2
Added overview to home page
The previous home page had unclear sections and labels leading to primary tasks. The updated home page allows users to see their top tasks right away
Added side navigation
Side navigation creates information hierarchy, making it easier to find information
Room for future features
The new format allows for additional features to be added in an organized and intuitive way
Highlights important information for quick browsing
Filters help users identify primary information
Move away from unreadable calendar to table
A table shows relevant important information for quick browsing and filters help users identify primary information.
Browsable list eliminates unwanted clicks
Details that matter reduces cognitive load
Information is organized into sections and tabs, allowing users to easily find what they need
Two-pane view and tabs reduces cognitive load
Allows Directors to browse with ease and reduces cognitive load when looking for data
A little more about my process...
Concept testing new dashboard
Realized primary information from “Today” and “Sub requests” could be further extracted
Eliminated extra navigation step
First view after logging displays immediately actionable information
Concept testing teacher assignment flows
Will the simplified flows cover everything employees need to accomplish their tasks?
Adding nearby teachers section
Half of the users mentioned distance as a primary factor in assigning permanent and substitute teachers
Card view of attendance checks
The original version took up lots of screen space
Table view of attendance checks
Table rows allow data to be more easily scannable and leaves space for other sections like overview and tasks
Employees were much happier with the redesigned flows and designs
Time saving
“[the new design] has interview notes, which right now I can’t access unless I open in a separate window, which again just takes more time”
Improve trust with clean UI
“this is super clean looking and nice and if I have to share my screen to show a school schedule, to my eyes it looks much more appealing”
Functional
“it has all the right information that I want to see”
“I love that the [student] feedback [section] is already there”
I now have a better appreciation for collaborative and communicative teams. I also learned I really enjoy projects where I get to learn about a new type of job and industry and solving niche problem.
