UKG Workforce Central Re-design

The UKG Workforce Central app is a widely used workforce management tool for businesses of all sizes. It allows employers to manage employee time and attendance, schedule shifts, and track payroll, among other functions. However, with the rapid evolution of technology and the ever-increasing demands of the modern workforce, the app's current user interface and user experience may no longer meet the needs of its users.

Project Type:

Self-Led

Strategies:

- UX Research
- UI Design
- Prototyping
- Usability Testing

Timeline:

March - May 2023

Tools Used:

Figma
Figma
Adobe Indesign
Adobe Indesign
Invision
Adobe XD
Miro
⬆

Analysis & Initial Exploration

- Project Brief
- Complaints & Issues
- Audit of UKG app

Research

- Surveys
- Competitive Analysis
- Red Route Analysis
- Challenges

Design Iteration

- Sketches
- IA

The Product

- Final Screens
- Enhanced Design Features

Testing

- A/B Testing
- Usability Testing

Evaluation

- Measuring Success
- Feedback
SKIP TO THE SOLUTION ⬇

Analysis & initial Exploration

Project Brief

I discovered the UKG Workforce Central app whilst working a part-time job in which the company had the employees use this application to organise rotas and other work-related tasks. This is when I noticed the major functionality issues when using the app and started a UX re-design project. The goal was to create a more intuitive, user-friendly, and engaging user interface that will streamline and enhance the user experience for both employees and employers, this included simplifying the app's functionality while preserving its core features. Exploring new ways to make the user interface more accessible, visually appealing, and efficient, with a particular focus on improving the overall user experience. This re-design UX project involved extensive research, testing, and collaboration with users and stakeholders to ensure that the new interface meets the needs and expectations of all users. By improving the user experience of the UKG Workforce Central app, the hope is to help businesses better manage their workforce, save time, and increase productivity.

Discovering common complaints and issues

To initiate the re-design of the UKG Workforce Central app, I conducted a thorough review of user feedback, concerns, and complaints through online reviews and directly asking users their concerns with the app. The objective was to identify recurring issues that affect the user experience. By utilising user-centric research and analysis, I aimed to uncover pain points, obstacles, and frustrations that users encounter while interacting with the app and use these insights to drive the UX re-design efforts.

Below are the findings from this analysis:

Audit of The Existing Application

After getting a sense of what current users' feelings were towards the app, I proceeded to identify several crucial areas of concern within the UKG Workforce Central app's features. Within this section, I explored the specific UI/UX issues encountered in critical features of the app including the homepage, schedule management, and other vital functionalities. Below is the summary of my findings, problems and potential solutions:

Homepage - Links to main features and settings

Unclear Feature labelling

Feature labelling is unclear and no additional information about what each of the features consists of.

Poor information
architecture

The settings menu suffers from a lack of logical grouping due to poor information architecture, resulting in an unorganised appearance.

Provide information for each feature

Give users with the capability to know the precise information contained within each feature.

Re model the  architecture

Revise the info-architecture to improve organisation and structure, resulting in menus and features that are more user-friendly.

Schedule - Work schedule for users / employees

Inability to look at past weeks

Past worked hours promote transparency, accountability, and effective management of work-related matters.

Lack of notifications & alerts

In retail and hospitality schedules can change, often and randomly; being notified of timetable changes can avoid issues for employees.

Allow users to view all worked weeks

Provide more transparency for users/employees by enabling access to past worked weeks and months.

Provide push notifications

Enable users to receive notifications about any updates to their work schedule to prevent shift-related mishaps.

Time Card / Fix Missed Punch - Tracks employees' worked hours

Clutter information

Information that the user doesn’t need to see repeatedly. This can cause cognitive overload for the user and wasted screen space.

Poor organisation of visual elements

Ineffective spacing, colour usage, and alignment of text. Both features have confusing layouts.

Streamline the information

Eliminate redundant information or features, ensuring a streamlined and clutter-free user experience.

Design better UI

Proceed to reorganise the user interface to establish an improved visual hierarchy. This will involve a better layout and colour system.

Requests / Accruals - Holiday and time off management

No way to edit or cancel requests

Users have found there is no way to change their time off / holiday requests once they are submitted.

Clarity is needed for allocated holiday

Users have expressed concerns that the UKG app does not provide a clear display of their allocated holiday or leave entitlements.

Enhace editing abilibites

Allow users to change the hours and dates of their submitted holiday / time off request if needed.

Display allocated holidays and hours used

With the help of visual aid allow users to view allocated hours and how many hours they have left.

Research

Overview

After identifying significant issues with the UKG Workforce app, the following phase involved conducting research to delve deeper into the app's current user experience. This involved understanding the user sentiment, pinpointing key pain points, identifying frequently used features, and assessing the competitive landscape to understand areas where the overall experience could be enhanced.

Surveys

I aimed to gain a deeper insight into the sentiments of current users regarding the app and obtain a better understanding of its efficiency in both work and personal contexts. My objective was to uncover any aspects where the workforce management app might impede their work and personal lives. To achieve this, I designed a survey comprising 12 questions and sought input from my former colleagues, garnering a total of 21 responses. In an effort to maintain objectivity and reduce bias in the responses, I also reached out to unacquainted users of the UKG Workforce app through online forums, thus expanding my survey pool to ensure a more comprehensive dataset. Below are some of the questions asked and key findings:

Key Findings

  • The majority of users perceive the app's user-friendliness, performance, and efficiency to be below average.

  • Users showed interest in incorporating a feature that allows for schedule preference requests.

  • The most used features for the app are the schedule, timecard & holiday requests. User's mentioned rarely using the fix missed punch feature due to the confusing layout and managers tend to fix punch cards issues from their end.

  • Several users/employees have experienced disruptions to their personal plans due to poor information architecture of the holiday booking system, such as instances of overbooking and employers cancelling requested time off, leading to inconveniences and conflicts.

  • A common frustration expressed in the responses was the inability to access past work weeks, which made it difficult for users to recall the specific days or hours they had worked.

  • Benefits of the app for the users were its ability to provide transparency regarding the pay codes and users' allocated holidays. This feature is particularly helpful in ensuring the accuracy of their monthly pay.

Red Route Analysis

During the initial analysis, I noticed that several features contained overlapping information. This prompted me to delve deeper into understanding which features were actively utilised by the users and which ones were not. To achieve this, I asked the same group of respondents from my surveys to inquire about their feature usage patterns. I gathered insights on which features were most frequently used and which were not, subsequently conducting a red route analysis to prioritise and address the most crucial user pathways based on this data.

After I found which features were most utlised this helped me with a couple of things:

Competitive Analysis

I lastly wanted to look into other popular workforce management apps to give a better understanding of what currently exists in the market and know which areas the UKG Workforce app is lacking and where it remains dominant. Below are the finding of that phase:

DEPUTY
APD WORKFORCE NOW
WHEN I WORK

Key Features

  • Staff rotas / scheduling system.

  • Time tracking fo raccurate time sheets and attendance.

  • Hiring system to post jobs, track applicants, and hire new staff.

  • Leave system for holiday requests and time off.

  • Integration into popular payroll and HR systems.

Strengths

  • Intuitive user interface: very modern and easy to use.

  • Extensive scheduling options: E.g. Categorising employees based on their roles and providing the ability to view all employees scheduled to work on a specific day.

  • Geolocation-based time tracking: This is helpful for larger companies with a global workforce.

  • Integration with popular POS systems: helping to streamline data management and having accurate data exchanged for employees' pay and more.

Weaknesses

  • Lack of reporting resources and data visualisation tools.

  • Due to the infrastructure, it is not suitable for organisations witha workforce exceeding 600 employees.

Key Features

  • Time and attendance scheduling.

  • Benefits administration.

  • Comprehensive HR.

  • Payroll platform.

Strengths

  • Streamlined HR Processes: ADP Workforce simplifies and automates various HR processes, including payroll management, time and attendance tracking, benefits administration, and talent management.

  • Robust reporting and analytics: In comparison to competitors, ADP has great resources to allow businesses to gain insights into workforce data, labour costs, turnover rates, and other key metrics.

  • Compliance and Regulatory Support: ADP Workforce helps businesses maintain compliance with labour laws, tax regulations, and other HR-related requirements. The system automatically updates tax rates, assists with tax filings, generates necessary reports, and helps ensure adherence to legal obligations.

  • Scalability: ADP provides tailored packages designed to accommodate businesses of varying sizes and scales, ensuring their specific needs are met.

Weaknesses

  • Complex setup and configuration process.

  • User Interface and Ease of Use: Some users have reported that the userinterface of ADP Workforce can be complex and less intuitive compared tocertain competitors.

  • Customer Support: Some users have expressed concernsabout the responsiveness and effectiveness of the support provided for ADPWorkforce.

Key Features

  • Employee scheduling.

  • Time tracking.

  • Shift swapping.

  • Team messaging.

  • Task management.

  • A blog to explore valuable Insights on relevant topics to the customer.

Strengths

  • User-friendly interface.

  • Mobile Accessibility: When I Work offers mobile applications for both managers and employees, providing convenient access to schedules, shift details, time-off requests, and team communication from anywhere.

  • Automated scheduling and shift management.

  • Communication and Team Collaboration: The platform promotes effective communication among managers and employees.

  • Provides free content to help clients: Through the blog, clients are able to gain industry insight.

Weaknesses

  • Lack of features in comparison to competitors.

  • No options to contact the company’s team or receive feedback from users.

Challenges

Overview

Following that, I proceeded to pinpoint the key challenges associated with the re-design and offer specific recommendations to attain user enhancement. These objectives were aligned with the primary goals identified during the analysis and research phase.

3 Goals For The Re-Design

Enhance Usability and Task Efficiency

Modernise Design & Improve Visual Appeal

Ensure Consistent User Flows

Design Iteration

Overview

Now that I had identified the focused goals and key issues that required attention, my next step was to begin the process of designing solutions and focus on determining the flow and aesthetics that would best serve the identified goals.

Information Architecture

I started the design solution phase by addressing the information architecture of the app. As previously mentioned, users had encountered challenges with the app's flow, expressing concerns about navigation difficulties and feature discoverability. Moreover, issues related to information clutter were prevalent. To mitigate these issues, I undertook the task of restructuring the information architecture.

Sketches

I went through the screenshots I collected during my look at what competitors were up to. I carefully checked out the elements that worked really well in their apps. Plus, I explored places like Dribbble and Behance to find some extra ideas and inspiration and created sketches from this. I also kept in mind the current landscape of the UKG Workforce app so users were not thrown and were familiar with the landscape.

The Product

Overview

After a few additional iterations of sketches and rough drafts, I then went on to the creation of the final product. Below you can find the last rounds of the designs created.

Final Screens

Enhanced Design Features

Here are some of the modifications added to address the app's issues and alleviate the users' pain points.

Fixed Navigation Bar

Similar to many contemporary applications, one of the simplest methods to establish effective site navigation and ensure consistent user flows is by implementing a fixed navigation bar. This approach enables users to access crucial features from any page.

Improved visual hierarchy

Prior to the app's redesign, there were noticeable problems with colour, spacing, and visual elements that seemed out of place. To address these issues and pay greater attention to colour theory, I ensured that visual communication was improved.

Spacing Issues Resolved

Created a new user interface that tackled the issue of empty space that often made the app look unfinished and outdated.

Condensed Features / Information

Reduced the amount of repeated information and streamlined features, for example including the accruals section in requests.

Heightened Accessibility Considerations

Gave further consideration to in-app customer support, addressing visibility issues, and enhancing accessibility features.

Testing

Overview

After finalising the designs, my top priority was to conduct testing to ensure that users were thoroughly content with the end product. This entailed a specific A/B test to validate the visual elements and overall suitability of the app. Following that, I performed a usability test to compare the redesigned version with the original app design.

A/B Testing

Initially, I designed mock-ups using a light colour theme to align with the concept of a modern UI revamp. I believed that a light theme might alleviate users' difficulties in viewing content, as it had been a recurring issue. However, I also had concerns about maintaining continuity with the original aesthetic of the UKG Workforce app.  To address this concern, I developed additional mock-ups with the original dark theme of the UKG Workforce app. To determine the most suitable theme for the final product, I conducted an A/B test based on specific hypotheses. This approach provided focus and clarity, ensuring measurable outcomes and data-driven design decisions.

Hypothesis 1

'Due to the law of similarity, users are more likely to perceive the dark theme already associated with the current UKG Workforce app as more recognisable, which, in turn, will lead to increased engagement and satisfaction.'

Hypothesis 2

'The light colour theme will enhance the readability and legibility of text and interface elements, reducing eye strain and improving overall usability. Users also will perceive the app as more modern, visually refreshing.'

Conversion Rate (Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Conversions / Total Number of Users Tested) x 100) - In order to test these hypotheses, I assigned specific tasks to the selected users and asked them to complete these tasks using the two different prototypes of the different colour modes. By closely observing and comparing the users' speed and efficiency in successfully completing the tasks, I aimed to gather insights that would help determine the most efficient theme.

Qualitative User Feedback - Users expressed a preference for the dark theme, finding it more modern and visually appealing. They also highlighted that the content was easier to read and comprehend with the dark colour scheme. It can also be argued users were simply just used to a dark theme colour and were therefore more comfortable with it.

After completing the A/B testing, it became apparent that the dark theme garnered more positive feedback. This test confirmed that the dark theme was indeed the preferred option among users.

Evaluation

Overview

As a concluding step, a thorough evaluation was conducted through a usability test, which involved a side-by-side comparison of the redesigned app and the original version. The primary objective was to discern whether the redesign had successfully addressed the identified issues and brought about improvements in various aspects of user experience.

Usability Test

5

Days

8

Tasks

16

Participates

The Test

  • Defined a set of specific tasks for users to complete using the re-design of the UKG Workforce app with a simple prototype e.g. submitting a holiday request, finding upcoming rotas, etc.
  • I assessed the efficiency of task completion through speed.
  • Users were then asked to complete the same tasks with the existing UKG Workforce app.
  • After each task users were asked questions to capture their thought processes whilst completing the tasks and to collect more qualitative feedback.
  • Finally, comparisons of the results were conducted to ascertain which app exhibited superior overall efficiency.

The Goals

  • Determine whether users can complete activities successfully and independently.
  • Keep track of users' performance and mental processes as they work through tasks.
  • Determine whether the design is enjoyable.
  • Identify design flaws.

The Results

The majority of users, around 93.75%, expressed their belief that the re-design of the UKG workforce app offered improved functionality and efficiency, and could serve as a replacement for the existing design.

Improved User-friendliness and Usability

Users were significantly concerned by the lack of user-friendliness of the original design of the UKG Workforce Central app, expressing numerous concerns about navigation issues and app crashes. Now, 93.75% of tested users conveyed that the app's redesign resulted in enhanced user-friendliness and improved usability.

Updated and Contemporary Design

Online reviews and feedback from tested users highlighted their strong disapproval of the outdated appearance of the original design. 87.50% of tested users expressed that the now updated UI had brought a more contemporary feel to the application.

Enhanced Task Efficiency and Speed

During the usability test and user inquiries, tasks like booking holidays and making schedule changes demonstrated increased efficiency with notably reduced completion times. 81.25% of tested users expressed that they were able to organise their work schedule more efficiently.

Measuring Success

After launching the product, it's essential to assess its performance and the impact of the re-design. Here are key metrics to measure the success effectively:

Task Efficiency

Assessing how quickly and effectively users can complete essential tasks. This can involve task completion times, error rates and task success rates.

User Adoption

Evaluating if users are embracing and using the redesigned features. This includes metrics on feature usage, active user count and session duration.

Error Reduction

Measuring how effectively the redesign has reduced user errors, mistakes, and issues in the app. As mentioned before this can be done mainly by analysing error rates.

Employee Productivity

Monitoring if the redesign impacts the efficiency and output of employees using the app. Looking at KPIs that would be associated with the UKG Workforce app.

Usability Testing

To further validate the redesign, usability tests could be conducted periodically to affirm its positive impact over time. This could involve more A/B Testing, Tree testing, etc.

User Feedback

Gathering user feedback, which includes reviews, surveys, and interviews, to inquire about the impact on employees' productivity & on their personal lives.

Feedback

© 2023 Shardai Dawkins 🚀