UX/UI Case Study: ProRota App - Roland Richard Toth (rolipok.design) User experience design, User interface design, Graphics

CASE STUDY

PROROTA

The ProRota app is designed for small businesses, such as coffee shops, to assist their employees with their everyday work schedules.

Capstone project — Google UX design course

Role

UX/UI design

Duration

April - May, 2022

Sector

Scheduler, Organiser, Small businesses

Background

ProRota is a fictional* app and it was created as part of my Google UX design course in the start. I was tasked to create an scheduler application for coffee shops. Most of my classmates who designed in this category, they designed application for the shop visitors, e.g. table reservation and coffee ordering apps. I put on the challenge to design something less common, as a scheduler for the shop employees, to help their everyday workflow.

*ProRota has been created as a result of an assignment prompt during my studies. Some information has been made up strictly for this capstone project, some information convey real data. Hyperlinks are not linked to existing websites and applications.

The problem

Organising work schedule for even a small group of employees (3 to 8 people) can be challenging, having a common platform of communication for employees could help time managing.

The goal

Create a useful application and surface for employees where they can effectively communicate and organize their work fast and easily.

My role

Creating mobile app UX and UI design, from paper wireframes to high -fi prototypes.

* user research * wireframing * prototyping

RESEARCH

Competitive audit & secondary research

My thorough online research showed that there is no similar organiser platform on the market yet, which is specifically designed to help small business and their employees with schedules. There are few applications on the market what are made mostly for medium and large businesses and their platform is far too complex just to serve a small group of employees. Although they offer many useful and professional solutions, in this form of implementation those functions are not relevant. I have tried to screen their offer of tools on their platforms, and tried to find those they not included, but still could be useful in the every work of a small group of coffee shop employees, such as the “message board” tool.

As a secondary research, first I have collected facts and data about the general tasks and work of coffee shop employees.

UNDERSTANDING THE USER

Persona

Peter T.

Age: 35
‍Education: professional barista school
Hometown: Munich, Germany
Family: wife, daughter
Occupation: barista and shop manager
at a coffee shop in Munich

Goals:
‍having more time away from work in the evenings and afternoons, so I can spend more time time with my daughter at home.

Frustrations:
‍there are 3 of my colleagues working in the coffee shop, we plan work schedule usually 2-3 weeks ahead, and it is always problematic to make a schedule quickly and easily for all the employees convenience, also our current system (excel table) does not make it available for online view.

Problem statement:

Peter is a barista at a small cafe, who needs an easy to use employee work schedule application because because it would help him and his colleagues to plan their work shifts easily.

USER JOURNEY MAP

ACTION

TASK LIST

FEELING ADJECTIVE

IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES

determine work days and opening times for the next two weeks

- get employee names
- decide on opening times, shift lengths, shift patterns

- excited
-confident

- getting ideas or pre-set shift schedule options

talk to employees and ask them about their availability for the next two weeks

- get employee contracts
- approach employees and ask them about their availability
- make detailed notes

- hopeful
- satisfied

- get easier way for communication with employees(like the within app chat), and more organised note options(within app notepads for the manager)

make an initial rota and show it to the employees

- consider individual requests for shift lengths or specific days off from work
- make 2-3 versions of the schedule

- confused
- overwhelmed

- get schedule suggestions during editing

make corrections after employee suggestions

- show the rota options to the employees and ask for feedback
- consider feedbacks and make changes if necessary
- finalize the rota

- overwhelmed
- anxious

- highlight all changes due after a data has been changed in the schedule, to help avoiding mistakes

make the rota online-offline available and editable for the manager

- post the schedule
- notify the employees about the new schedule
- monitor the platform for employee comments and additional requests

- hopeful
- satisfied

- make the days on schedule comment-able for employees, and make options for photo uploads about workplace issues
- send notifications about any changes to all user

The next step: 'create'

DIGITAL WIREFRAMES

INITIAL USABILITY STUDY

The study: 60 minutes study with 5 participants
Remote — Europe

Primary research, quantitative, unmoderated - usability study
Goals: To find out how easy for an employee to request a change on his/her next week rota, and post a message, and how much time (weekly) managers could save on planning schedule of employees with using the app?
During this research I found out more of users needs and concluded important insights what made me redesign the app for a better usability

Pain points

Users need better clues for how to mark the required shifts they want to cancel on the app calendar.

Users don`t have option to write messages instantly to the newsboard from the main screen.

Users should see important recent happenings / events / messages on the main screen.

Mockups

Considering above findings, I had made changes on the wireframes and low-fid prototype and started to build the mockups and create a high-fid prototype for an other usability testing.

[data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { display: none; } @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) { [data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { position: absolute; z-index: -100; display: inline-block; height: 100%; width: 100%; object-fit: cover; } }

Usability study on the first high-fid prototype

I had conducted a second usability study after having finished the first versions of the mockups and High-fid prototype then made further changes in design in line with the insights.

Accessibility considerations

Application sounds turn on /off options -> added to refined mockups

Languages: only English version available for now

Takeaways

Impact

I feel that I managed to create a usable app with a simple design, with the help of research and usability studies. There were key changes in the project what were not planned but made the overall user experience much better.

What I learned that:

During the design process the original idea of the app can change a lot and secondary functions can come forward as main functions in some cases.

Next steps:

Engineering the product - testing - research & update

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!

Interested in working with me?

Let’s connect: rolipok@icloud.com

CASe STUDY: PROROTA