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Managing Chaos One Task at a Time
Tackling work scheduling issues
As part of any organization, every individual has a lot of work to do. I mean a lot. Some of these jobs naturally slip in between the cracks and when it’s showtime, managers may need to last minute scramble to help the day run smoothly.
As someone prone to forget their duties, my friend decided to flex his skills as a developer and call in a few friends to help build a scheduling app- including myself. When I was asked to help out with this project, my bottomline role for this project was to “make the app look pretty”. Little did I know, I jumped on board in a group that Jared Spool would call “the Dark Ages”. Everyone on the team (except obviously me) was a developer that had little to no experience working with user-centered design.
In this process, I had to overcome the challenge of communicating design to non-designers and implement from start to finish, the design process all my own. So I rolled my sleeves and began to work.
From an abstract concept of the issue to deducing the exact points of frustration
User interviews helped us:
- Learn their attitude towards current and potential methods of assignments
- Identify their frustrations and successes of the current tools they’re using
User Interview Questions
- How do you normally assign people to duties?
- What are some tools you use to do so?
- What is the hardest or most frustrating part of assigning workers?
- What are some things you need to consider when assigning duties?
- Does your local church have a problem with forgetting assignments? If so, what measures does your church do to help prevent this?
Findings
- Creating a schedule draft, then send for all to review, then publish
- Spreadsheet (Google, Excel)
- Email or mailing tools like Mailchimp for weekly reminders
- Accidental overlap of assignments
- Whether workers are pre-approved, avoiding overlaps, avoiding over-assigning
- Varied answers with this problem. Usually reminder emails work best
Rough sketches is the genesis of all great products
Creating User flows to generate a bird's eye view of the potential product
On my free time, I like to create digital art landscapes. Just like all projects, rough sketches are needed, even if most of the time they look like inappropriate looking oblong shapes. Even if it’s just unintelligible shapes, this process is so crucial to help me get started.
Just like digital painting, designing an app requires a very rough sketch – or user flow; otherwise once we reach the high-fidelity stage and realize the UX is terrible, we would’ve wasted so much time! I based my user flow off of the user research and meetings with my team in what the necessary functions are. Although this is nowhere close to the finished product, it gave way to the next step- wireframing and prototyping!
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The Bitter Old Man
Testing if our main function works via prototyping
I remember I was once stuck in a group sharing where this one bitter elderly man spent the whole given hour ranting and word vomiting. About what? I don’t know because it wasn’t relevant to me or to anyone. Even in conversations, it’s important to cater our words so that it’s relevant and pleasant to the end user- the listener. In the end, the facilitator didn’t do her job, the whole sharing time was wasted, and the old bitter man was still an old bitter man.
We need to avoid being the elderly man and spew out unusable products. We need to ensure that our users can and enjoy using it by prototyping. Having these core functions laid out from our user flow helped shaped my wireframes for the first prototype. Prototyping is so essential to the process because the designer (me.. surprise!) and the rest of the developers who have been thinking about this project for some time definitely have some biases. The averages users might not find our product as viable as we may make it out to be. Therefore it’s important for us to go through prototyping.
After sketches of a few designs, I quickly pulled out what the team and I deemed to be the most user-friendly. That’s when I slapped it together with Balsalmiq- a quick and easy tool for users to navigate through (especially in this pandemic where everything must be online!).
Prototype I Scenarios
- You realized that your dad may need a ride to the hospital on 5/23, how would you navigate the app to view if you’re free or not?
- If you were assigned as a Religious Education teacher on 5/23 but had to take your dad to the hospital that morning, how would you ask someone to switch this duty with you?
- If someone else were to request a change of duties with you, how would you accept it?
- You know you need to mentally prepare yourself for each duty at least a week in advance. How would you set up your reminders or notifications?
- Does your local church have a problem with forgetting assignments? If so, what measures does your church do to help prevent this?
Findings
- Easy to understand which dates are free through calendar.
- Word “switching” is ambiguous to most; needs marker of current date; unsure which time (AM or PM) is requested for
- Whether workers are pre-approved, avoiding overlaps, avoiding over-assigning
- Varied answers with this problem. Usually reminder emails work best
Prototype II Scenarios
- Today is Monday, you want to see what duties you have coming up in the next few weeks. How would you do that?
- You’re a pianist and want to see who’s hymn leader this upcoming Saturday. How do you find the PDF schedule?
- You’re forgetful! Last week you forgot to do Audio Visual. This week you don’t want to forget. How do you change the settings of notifications so you get notified and reminded?
- You realized you need to take your dad to the hospital this Saturday morning, how do you find someone to switch your duties with you?
- You realized that you don’t have to take your dad to the hospital anymore, how do you cancel the request?
- Someone is requesting to switch duties with you on June 7th, how do you respond?
- What does the blue dot mean to you?
Findings
- Easy to navigate. No problems from testing users
- Easy to navigate. No problems from testing users
- Finds notification settings too general, needs function of setting up pings to individually and/or all duties. Words “notifications” and “updates” too synonymous to distinguish.
- Words “switch” and “replace” also can be too ambiguous.
- None of users completed this task.
- Easy to navigate. No problems from testing users
- Varying answers – ultimately needs clarity.
Most recent low-fidelity
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High Fidelity Screens
When I was creating an online art gallery for a client, I assumed I understood everything she wanted and created the whole sha-bang. Little did I know, it was nothing like she wanted so I had to start from scratch. If only I had a rough draft and went it over with her…
I love visual design. Making high-fidelity screens was always my favorite part because I get to make my baby come alive! It’s like seeing mosaic pieces coming together to become this beautiful masterpiece. I made drastic UI changes after a few iterations, but one thing that I admit I regret not doing was going back to the drawing board during iterations. When our team lead wanted a new direction for a certain function, instead of using low fidelity screens, I started recreating the app on high-fidelity screens. I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort but at least after the art gallery incident AND Sheaves, I learned my lesson.
Emotional Design & Accessibility
- Followed church’s style guidelines: typography, color, branding
- Blue color psychology – clean, informative, spiritual
- WCAG AAA contrast color pass
Design Language
- Evoke professional feelings
- Keep verbiage concise yet effective for clear communication
- Each visual cue serves a function
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Final Thoughts
Taking my first steps as a big girl in the big girl world was eye-opening. With this as my first real project from concept to a high-fidelity design, I came to learn not only how to improve as an UX/UI designer, but also as a coworker. By designing and re-designing iterations after iterations, I honed in on my eye for pleasing UI (and *cough* go back to low-fids when something isn’t working. I also learned the importance of user testing because at the points of time that I didn’t, the application’s direction headed towards what MY perspective was, not the general user. It is a humbling reminder that I am designing for the user, not for the designers. I was also surprised that I didn’t use all the tools I learned from my UX/UI bootcamp, which gave me a more realistic outlook on future career opportunities. Lastly, working in a team is completely different than a mock project. Constant communication is so vital and explaining design jargon is a skill that I developed over this time.
I’m happy I had this opportunity to grow not only as a designer, but as a person. And I know that as long as I’m willing to humble myself and be open to learn, I can be the best designer I can be.
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