CHALLENGE
In the beginning, we thought the fastest way to help hourly workers was for those workers to be classified as 1099 contractors. As we learned more about the laws and regulations of the employment industry we decided that a W-2 model made more sense long term. Initially, we thought this meant Spur had to be the Employer of Record. This was a tough sell to workplaces, and added liability to Spur we couldn’t control at scale. This change would also mean that all workers on the platform technically worked for Spur. Last year we decided to offer a PEO model instead. A PEO (Professional Employer Organization) allows workplaces to co-employee workers, and define the responsibilities of each party.
From the stand point of our web admin app, this was a major pivot. Prior to moving to the PEO model Spur was responsible for managing everything about the workers. We had built an HRMS (Human Resources Management System) that could be managed by our internal team, but we needed to offer the same functionality to our customers. After many pivots we determined the best route was to rearchitect and rebuild the product from the ground up.
ROLE
I wore a few different hats on this project. I contributed as a product designer, manager, and researcher. I worked with a product designer from my team, the leadership of our development team, and the product owner of the Spur web admin app.
PROCESS
To kickoff this project we began interviewing existing and potential customers to know what tools they’re currently using to manage their workplace, and to understand the types of problems these tools are solving. We used the initial research to build a few personas.
We started researching competitors’ tools to identify features sets and determining the most popular tools for each domain. We then took this information back to our customers to validate the direction and any assumptions that we had made in the process.
We started off the design by creating a mobile first symbol library and design patterns to ensure consistency within the app. Consistency is critical to making a learnable product. There is a trade off between time to complete task and the the learnability of the product. If you’re building a product that a user will use daily it’s important that common tasks are direct to complete. Unfortunately, that means introducing a slight learning curve. A similar comparison of this principle comes from video games. For gamers to reduce their time on task they must learn button combinations, map layouts, and menu structures to be successful.
There were eight sections that we identified to develop a MVP:
Employee Information
Locations
Positions
Qualifications
Settings
Benefits
Schedule
Time Review
Employee Information
Locations
POSITIONS
QUALIFICATIONS
Settings
Benefits, Schedule, and Time Review warrant their own case study and were not included in this case study.
RESULTS
The redesign is an ongoing endevor. We hope to release the first iteration by early next year.
LESSONS LEARNED
An ounce of research is worth a pound of effort.
Defining a design system prior to any major project saves time.