SCHEDULING PLATFORM

2022

Executive summary

Scheduling employees for shift work can be a complex process, especially as a company grows. I decided to employ user research methods to lay the groundwork for a digital scheduling tool: a single platform where employees and supervisors can manage scheduling requests and requirements, making the process faster and easier.

As part of Google’s UX Design Professional Certificate, I used autoethnographic data and user research methods to ideate and define pain points solved by an employee scheduling platform. I created two user personas and a journey map based on one of the personas. These were used in subsequent stages of UX design.

Methods

Autoethnography

User stories

Persona building

Journey mapping

Deliverables

Personas

User journey maps

Impact

Laid a broad, foundational understanding of customers’ pain points to inform UX design

Problem

What pain points should an employee scheduling platform solve?

Scheduling employees for shift work can be a complex process, especially as a company grows. Employees submit scheduling requests through SMS, email, or on paper, and supervisors struggle to keep track of requests in addition to other paper or digital records they analyze to determine staffing requirements. A single digital platform where employees and supervisors can manage this information would make the scheduling process faster and easier.

I chose an employee scheduling platform as my portfolio project for Google’s UX design certificate. After creating empathy maps and brainstorming pain points, I was tasked with creating user stories, personas, and a journey map that would highlight moments of frustration in the process of creating an employee shift schedule.

Research plan

Data

The UX design certificate program does not involve gathering data from actual participants. Assignments are based on sample data or researchers’ personal experience. Therefore, I chose an employee scheduling platform as my case study because I could draw on much autoethnographic data: 7 years’ experience with shift work in retail and food service.

Research methods

In order to identify pain points as accurately as possible, I had to empathize with employee and suprvisor experiences of timesheet scheduling. To this end, I built employee and supervisor personas and user stories based on my autoethnographic data. The personas helped me to reflect on the platform’s primary user groups, their pain points, and the broader contexts in which employee scheduling happens, e.g. users’ needs, lifestyles, and goals. The user stories helped me identify crucial actions and benefits each user group might associate with the platform.

From there, I developed a more holistic understanding of the user experience by mapping a supervisor’s journey of the employee scheduling process. I mapped the main actions in this process and their associated tasks, emotions (including frustrations and delights), opportunities for improvement, and accessibility considerations.

Insights

Personas

By reflecting on my data and empathizing with employees and supervisors, I was able to develop 2 personas that represent the range of behaviours on both sides of the employee scheduling experience. These are the highlights for each persona:

BARISTA

Dora, 23

"There's so much going on in Berlin and with university. I don't need more complications at work."

Education: 2nd year BA student in Sociology

Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

Family: Lives with 3 flatmates

Goals

Work enough to cover groceries and recreation
Have enough time to focus on their studies
Explore the city

Frustrations

"Sometimes supervisors schedule me when I’m not available, and it’s hard to find someone to cover shifts last-minute."
"I have dyslexia, so sometimes I mix up the schedule myself."

Dora came to Berlin to do a BA, partly because university fees are much lower than in their native Australia. Their parents cover their rent, but they need a side job to afford groceries and going out with friends. Sometimes supervisors accidentally schedule them when they have class, or forget about a time-off request they submitted weeks ago. They have dyslexia, which makes it hard to read the small, detailed schedule printed out every week.

SUPERVISOR

Renan, 30

"I love my job, but making the weekly schedule kills me!"

Education: BA in Music History

Hometown: Salvador, Brazil

Family: Single, lives alone

Goals

Schedule staff quickly and efficiently
Accommodate staff scheduling needs as fairly as possible
Get permanent residency

Frustrations

Takes several hours to plan weekly schedule for 30 employees
Hard to keep track of changing availabilites and time-off requests

Renan moved to Berlin five years ago on a working holiday visa. He found a job as a barista at a café, whose boss sponsored Renan’s long-term work visa and recently promoted him to supervisor. Renan likes his coworkers but is very busy, and one of his major pain points is keeping track of everyone’s availabilities and scheduling needs. It takes him a whole evening each week to plan out the schedule.

Journey map

By putting myself in a supervisor’s shoes, I was able to map a user journey for this persona, which highlighted moments of frustration in the employee scheduling process.

Impact

These personas and user journey map laid a broad, foundational understanding of the scheduling platform’s context of use and pain points, which are essential to the subsequent UX design.

Learnings

The deliverables would be strengthened by additional data. Diary studies would provide more accurate representation of tasks and feelings for the journey map, and interviews would help to build out contextual information for the personas. Together, these data would also help to reduce researcher bias, as my deliverables are based primarily on my personal recollections of shift work.