Engagements and Time Tracking
Introduction
Our project journey starts with comprehensive user research which is essential for understanding and addressing user needs, reducing assumptions, creating user-friendly products, and enabling data-driven decision-making, all of which ultimately lead to improved user satisfaction. We conducted research on two of our internal applications: Engagements, used for managing projects, and Time Tracking, where users track their time spent on projects.
We initiated the project with a collaborative whiteboarding session and user interviews to gather insights that informed the creation of personas and service blueprints. Using these insights, we developed recommendations to prioritize improvements and will now focus on translating them into design solutions to enhance user interactions.
Initial Whiteboarding Session
To kick-off the project, our team conducted a whiteboarding session with key stakeholders. This collaborative meeting served two critical objectives. Firstly, it allowed us to identify and define distinct user groups; identifying these groups helped us pinpoint the right individuals to interview. Secondly, the whiteboarding session enabled us to sketch out a preliminary service blueprint. This blueprint served as a visual roadmap, mapping out the entire journey with the application where we would later gain a deeper understanding of the end-to-end user experience, allowing us to pinpoint potential areas for improvement.
Conducting User Interviews
Following the whiteboarding session was the next phase of the project, the user interviews. Our goal was to gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of our users. To achieve this, we conducted user interviews for each user persona identified in the previous step.
We conducted interviews with at least three users per persona, totaling 23 participants. We focused on discovering how each persona used the application and learning the process behind the tasks completed with the applications. Our research questions were:
What are the user’s goals and motivations for using the applications?
What are the user’s pain points for using the application?
How frequently are the users using each application?
What are the steps users take to complete their tasks?
What are some areas of opportunity for the applications?
Analysis of Interviews to Develop Personas and Service Blueprints
Upon completion of the user interviews, we used the analysis method of affinity mapping to structure our interview notes. This involved grouping related insights and observations into coherent clusters. The clusters then served as the foundation for crafting the personas for the each of the seven user groups. These personas included biographical details, their goals, pain points, and the frequency of their interaction with the applications.
Once these personas were developed, we transitioned to creating our two service blueprints for an Engagement Lifecycle and the Employee Lifecycle. These blueprints indicate the various stages, actions completed by each persona, different touchpoints, emotions, pain points experienced during these actions, and lastly, the areas of opportunity for enhancing the user experience.
Translating Insights to Actionable Solutions
Finally, we conducted a comprehensive review of both the pain points from the personas and service blueprints, as well as the identified areas of opportunity. We curated a set of recommendations, which we methodically categorized into three levels of priority – low, medium, and high. This prioritization was informed by the insights from our interviews and the frequency with which these issues were encountered and mentioned.
Next Steps
In the upcoming phases of this project, we will begin ideating and designing. Our focus revolves around transforming the recommendations we've compiled into designs and wireframes. Before we begin implementation, we’ll seek out user feedback again. By seeking user input and feedback on our designs, we ensure that the end product will meet their needs and expectations and improve the user experience.