The context
A software publishing company wants to redesign its tool allowing its employees to schedule their days off thanks to an online platform Holidays management called Human Resources.
This company has been created in 2010. Specialised in application for accountants, PME’s and TPE’s officers. It offers about twenty applications to its customers (dashboard, CRM, payroll, accounting, task, invoicing etc...
This company has a hundred employees, is in hyper growth, and the number of employees continues to increase. There are different sectors such as sales, technical, marketing, after-sales service, accounting and administration.
I took over this project in end to end, from the research to the delivery with high fidelity flows. The current product is huge so the goal was to improve every features step by step.
Here is bellow the first screens I had to tackle at the beginning of the project.
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"The existing application offers unecessary options for the user "
The fact is that the collaborator profile has the possibility of setting up all types of absence, even those which do not concern him. Just like for the manager profile, where the absence validation workflow is too long and laborious.
2 personas for each profile
After conducting several series of interviews, I was able to draw up 2 personas for the employee profile and the manager profile. During these interviews I collected user needs and targeted areas for improvement. I did that because no personas have been created before.
How might we design the content of the "Holiday management" application ?
In order to obtain user answers for this problem, I led 2 ideation workshops with the Miro tool. A first workshop consisted of employee profiles and the second workshop, manager profiles.
I used a communication medium with all the progress of the different exercises to be done during the workshop. I started by animating an icebreaker then warm-up exercises, before attacking the heart of the subject, the main problem.
I asked each participant to write down as many ideas as possible on the whiteboard. We then proceeded to a voting session and finally we ranked the best ideas on a priority grid.
"What if a leave application could allow employees to better follow a team schedule and facilitate taking leave thanks to a simple and modern interface?"
Wireframes
These wireframes allowed me to materialize the first lines of thought on the zoning of the app, as well as the first features that will be present in the MVP.
I made wireframes for the mobile and desktop version. They make it possible to see if the first user paths have been redesigned and meet the needs of users.
A more modern and user-centric application
One of the pain points that hasbeen resolved is to have types ofabsences adapted according toprofiles. The mobile application didnot exist before, it will play a majorrole in the quality of the userexperience, since it will allowemployees to enter their days of absence and send requests verysimply.
A very simple and quick form to fill out
Asking days off becomes child's play!There are two ways to set a vacation :either by selecting the corresponding dayson the calendar, or by clicking on the "add anabsence" button.
New features have been added to the product. They meet the needs expressed by users and improve the overall experience."
1. Event tracking
Another wish of the users was to be able to find the list of their leave taken and their progress status, in order to have a better follow-up.
2. Interactive calendar
From now on, it will be possible to set these holidays from the calendar. This has the effect of pre-filling the leave request form and therefore allowing the user to save time in entering information.
3. Alerts
Users are notified when a leave request has been processed, when requests are awaiting processing, or the deadline by which they will have to settle their remaining leave.
Process requests flow
Managers are responsible for processing their team's leave requests. There may be multiple requests at once as time passes. This is why we have redesigned this flow, in order to facilitate this task which may be daily.
Laying of leave flow
When the user arrive on the application, he logs into his account. He the narrives on the dashboard screen where he will be able to request leave either by pressing the "+" button or by directly choosing the dates on his calendar.
This will help them quickly and efficiently request vacation without the need to retype existing information.
User testing
I carried out two series of user tests: for the collaborator profile and for the manager profile. The first feedback was very positive and allowed us to reiterate on the product in order to improve it. These tests were carried out remotely because of the health context. We have taken into account the feedback from the testers, for example: the option of displaying school holidays, an area with company news or the possibility of attaching proof to their leave request.
Product release and next steps
The first Beta version of the app will be released in 2022 and will first be deployed to a few users who will be able to test it and provide feedback.
The next steps of the project are :
- Calendar synchronization with other tools such as Google calendar, Outlook...
- Review the userflow for processing leave requests from the user mailbox
- Redesign the profile settings view