Time Reports
Role: Product Designer
Client: Robert Half
Year: 2020
Robert Half is a global human resource consluting firm based in California. In 2020, their timesheet provider was set to phase out their services, and the team came to Bottle Rocket with a big challenge. They wanted to put their timesheet experience in the mobile app, and wanted it to be fun, scalable, and flexible.
The Problem
The existing experience consisted of either a non-repsonsive table on web, or emailing in a copy of a physical timesheet, making it hard to use on phones or tablets. The back end was also extremely complex with multiple steps in the approval process to track, knowing whether or not someone has skipped their lunch and needed to be paid for that time, and being able to put in time outside of work such as holiday pay and sick leave. I met multiple times over the course of a year with the Robert Half team of developers to make sure that we were implementing their system correctly with our redesign.
The Process
I started by doing research on other temp agencies and seeing how they let you put in your time. Initially I designed a slider system where workers could adjust hours worked per day with their finger, but when we met with our developers we realized that system had too many limitations. It was too difficult to add different types of time, and the sliders made it difficult to enter smaller amounts of time on screens with less vertical height resolution to work with. I eventually came up with a vertical punch card system for each day that would allow people to add new punch cards for in and out times and allowed for more flexibility on what type of time was entered.
The Testing
We arranged for user testing in-house with a focus on people who had experience working contract jobs from various temp agencies to determine how our product compared to other companies' solutions. Outside of a couple outliers, the tests proved that users understood the punch card system well, and could understand how to submit their time for the week and how to read the graphs for time entered. We received feedback that the statuses and error states were clear and easy to understand.
The Solution
After launching the punch card system, I expanded on it by adding the ability to not just add hours worked, but also sick leave, holiday, and bereavement times as well. I performed an audit of all colors included in their branding, and replaced the ones that failed accessibility standards. We created an ADA compliance report to share with the client whenever getting the new colors approved. As a result of our efforts, Robert Half saw a 450% increase in regular app users over the following years, as well as a 92% increase in accurate time reporting overall.