Bridging the gap between workers and their supervisors.

Designing the user experience for a SaaS product that bridges the communication gap between tradesman and their supervisors. It streamlines work orders, material lists, customer data management, time recording, photos, scheduling, approvals for trade and industry. The challenge was to design the employee IOS app and the supervisor dashboard.

The Information architecture and the user flow

The employee/handyman app flow was designed to echo the actual workflow of the handyman.

1

Assigned jobs

Checking the assigned jobs for the day. They have options to view all the job documents and job instructions uploaded by the supervisor. They can also change the status of the job from scheduled to pending or report other issues.
2

Inventory

Workers can also enter the inventory they are using for a particular job for e.g. tools, vehicles or construction material. This also helps the supervisor to keep a track of the inventory.
3

Approval

The workers have an option to upload pictures of the completed assignment and get signatures for approval from the client.

Wireframing the user flow

In order to make sense of the IA, I started translating the flow into wireframes. My research showed that text messaging and Whats app is the most common means of communication between the tradesman and their supervisor. I designed the app following the user behaviour of the native IOS guidelines and the interactions that the tradesman are already familiar with in Whats app. The application includes a time sheet for the entire working time, which is operated with start and stop. The employee only sees the orders assigned to him. The master data cannot be changed, he can simply document and call up information.

“

It's difficult to keep track of the tools. Sometimes the workers forget them at their house or in the company car.

Supervisor
“

Its difficult to gather all the documents and assignments from WhatsApp, email and phone conversations in one place.

Worker
“

There has to be a way better than calls and WhatsApp messages to share proof of completion of a job

Worker
“

I hope they are not trying to track every move I make!

Worker

Learnings from the Empathy map

1

Filling an aggregate

The employees prefer filling an aggregate of the timesheet at the end of the day rather than exact time for every job.
2

Stressed

The workers were not comfortable about reporting every second. They were starting to feel stressed about meeting the benchmarks to complete a job or anxious about the constant feel of being watched while they worked.
3

Complicated

They started feeling that their daily work would unnecessary become complicated.

Re-looking at the flow

After the research it felt completely futile to make the workers fill every second for every assignment. Therefore the function of time sheets was moved to a global function. Something the workers could enter at the end of the day.

The delivered interface

The supervisor dashboard

I mapped out the complete user flow considering different user scenarios. The flow was quickly translated onto low fidelity paper wireframes and prototypes to be tested with the supervisors.

1

Scheduling

Scheduling of assignments and capturing their status. Adding documents and requirements and assigning it to a worker.
2

Planning

Planning of employees, recording their absences, timesheets and inventory.
3

Alerts

The most important part of the dashboard to get alerts about change in status of an assignment or request for material etc.

Wireframing and paper prototyping

1

Space allocation

Dividing the screen into columns establishes clear areas for the hamburger menu, the main activity area and the processing menu. Its a classic interaction pattern that has been followed in operating systems etc.
2

Content and visual hierarchy

The vertical segregation on the screen establishes a clear hierarchy for the content. It establishes a clear "parent child hierarchy" . This simplifies the cognitive load by making the dashboard look more visual.

The supervisor dashboard