Among the UX projects I've worked on, UX has often played the role of the unwanted visitor. With this project, very little UX actually occurred, most of it was logical thinking and guess work. One of the key outcomes of the project was laying out the groundwork for future UX work to occur.
Preface
The goal was to add record keeping functionality to an existing component of the BYU Mobile App, BYU's Time Clocks, and create a web interface while unifying the interfaces. This project would also help move an estimated 30% of BYU's workforce from paper time cards to digital cards.
After 3+ years of "politics" the newly formed UX team was asked to step in, and I was assigned to lead the effort. There were many reasons the project had taken so long, but those weren't important, my goal was to design a useable feature, all while sneaking in as much UX as possible.
Requirements
The design required the ability for the following:
• Record time spent working on a work order
• Remove or modify work order records
• View time records for an employee's work order • Allow entry of lunch punches after the fact
• Allow entry of sick and vacation time
• View sick and vacation time balances
• Record time spent working on a work order
• Remove or modify work order records
• View time records for an employee's work order • Allow entry of lunch punches after the fact
• Allow entry of sick and vacation time
• View sick and vacation time balances
The Beginning
Presented below are a few of the screens that had been developed prior to my joining the project.
While I attempted to build out the core of the app, and incorporate the requirements, we attempted to introduce portions of UX, such as wire framing, user testing, and in-person observations. Our attempts were met with disapproval, and so we persisted and snuck in some user testing and surveying with subordinate Physical Facilities (PF) employees. This decision proved slow, and yet valuable. During meetings we began to share our findings, which opened the door for broader discussions on the impact of UX.
One such finding was the manner in which employees recorded their time, originally, we understood that a system would "serve" an employee his/her tasks. After asking PF employees, we found out that they would often be "loaned" out to the PF departments, and so would be given their task codes.
Ultimately, we never got the approval we were looking for and so never fully utilized UX methods on this portion of the project, however it did lend us credibility and more importantly, trust.
After 500+ screens prototyped in Adobe XD (and countless tweaks), we finally found a design that worked for everyone.
In addition to working closely with our mobile developers, I was able to complete these designs within a month and a half. Next, came the time clocks and web interface.
BYU Time Clocks
BYU's time clocks consist of a Raspberry Pi running in a "Kiosk" format. They are mounted throughout campus within easy reach of anyone who doesn't have a smart phone or who'd rather account for their time directly on a BYU device. There are an estimated 300+ such devices spread throughout campus.
In speaking with the developers responsible for the time clocks, a new design had already been worked on and approved for the basic clock (separate to this project). Initially, the following designs were presented.
While the design employed a similar design to the mobile app, the campus partners felt it needed to match the mobile app more closely.
After much tinkering, and even proposing a complete copy of the mobile app, including a change in orientation of the time clocks, the following was presented and approved.
Web Clocks
The final piece I worked on in this project was the web interface. As we had built a straight interface that was designed to scale well, originally we lobbied to take the work that was created for the Raspberry Pi's and optimize it for other devices. It was decided that the web portion would be built in Oracle's PeopleSoft application.
Originally, my investigation lead me to believe that PeopleSoft was a rigid application, and so the designs below were presented.
These designs were almost approved, however, our campus partners still wanted something closer to the other two interfaces. After some consideration, an intrepid PeopleSoft engineer agreed to push the boundaries of what the application was designed to do. And so, the design approved for the Time Clocks was scaled to meet the needs of a web browser.
Conclusion
As of the summer of 2020, the project was mostly completed, there were some final tweaks that were requested, and required due to changes in employee benefits. When I reflect on this project, my key takeaway was the introduction of User Experience not only in the project itself, but also to certain teams within the Office of Information Technology. And while UX didn't get to go as planned, it opened up the door for UX to thrive on the following project.