The research suggested that all our issues were related to space. Believing we had to re-design the entire Scheduling experience, we proposed a space-related solution: a new sidebar UI component.
25%
Target NPS Score
1000+
DAUs
700+
Customers served
Building a New Visit UX for Schedulers
Building a New Visit UX for Schedulers
AlayaCare is a cloud software suite helping home care service agencies. As a B2B SaaS, they help optimize their customers’ operations to achieve better health outcomes.
1000+ DAUs in the US, Canada, and Australia
Business
Health
B2B SaaS
Role
Lead UI/UX Designer
Team
1 Product Designer
2 Front-End Engineers
1 UX Research
Year
2022–23
Business case
Can streamlining the Schedulers’ tasks improve health outcomes in the home healthcare space?
Scheduling users are busy, white collar administrators. Their day-to-day?
Constantly managing disruptions.
Any work obstacles lead to missed visits, which leads to missed care.
Schedulers are:
Multi-tasking power users that consume large amounts of data
Blocked by data inaccessibility, dispersion, and slow load times
To resolve issues, Schedulers have to rapidly familiarize themselves with a case’s details.
They are responsible for all their agency’ visits and clients, which means they:
Operate across physical/digital spaces to send/receive data
Jump around domains: Employee / Client / Accounting / Legal
Make decisions by combining data with a deep knowledge of their staff and government policies
So they need to quickly scan for relevant data and have access to the appropriate actions.
But that is not what is happening…
Creating a Visit is long and bulky. There are too many choices, clicks, and screen changes.
The “Add Visit” modal shows many data entry fields upon launch
But underlying entry order/ chronology is specific and invisible
Hidden dependencies or chronology complicates on-boarding
The “Add Visit” modal shows many data entry fields upon launch
Assigning Employees triggers 2 screen changes as well as reducing the adoption of “Employee Finder” feature tool
New modal opens on top of old one
Toggle between Metrics and Calendar to view data
Toggling between data visualization views is inconvenient
Employee Finder modal opens inside Add Visit Modal
Users forced to “complete” a visit creation—leaving the Employee field empty even if they know who they want to assign
50% of created visits require editing post-creation, past Step 3
Visit creation tasks straddle in-app Add Visit and View Visit workflows
Visit creation tasks straddle in-app Add Visit and View Visit workflows
Users forced to open a newly-created Visit to finish their task. The problem?
The View Visit screen is a poorly designed dashboard.
“Info” tab lacks actually useful info, forcing users to click elsewhere
Most users waste a click when opening this screen
Interviews later revealed that the “Edit”, “Offer,” and “Premium” tabs are the most used
Data dispersed across 10 tabs—but only 3 are commonly used
“Edit” tab contains useful info, but actions buttons live in other tabs
Actions like applying a “New Status” or adding a “Premium,” requires consulting info in Edit tab
Switching tabs constantly
My hypothesis:
The Add / View Visit UX is time-heavy, disorganized, and lacking in features.
17 end-user interviews over 2 months
The preliminary research I collected—competitor analysis, internal UI audit, and user device usage metrics—culminated in one-on-one interviews with 17 Schedulers across 6 SME customers.
findings
Better hand-off and transition between UX flows
Real-life UJ straddles 3 disconnected flows: Client Intake, Add Visit, View Visit
Having a unified workflow would be good because “we schedule the entire series of visits” at the point when client enters the service.
Insights
Unify Add Visit and View Visit workflows in fewer screens
Provide quick action to “Create and Open” the newly saved visit
Expand Date and Time feature functionality
Change visit times and recurrence frequently
Need more complex recurrence options for their business
Insights
Improve logic of Date, Time, and Duration fields
Design a multi-recurrence UX for complex visits
Upstream Shift Offer (SO) and develop a Send All action
Be able to send SO during Add Visit
Send a bulk SO to all available contractors
Upstreaming SO actions “would definitely be very helpful when they create a brand new visit, knowing that it will be a vacancy and send it off.”
Insights
Add Shift Offer functionality to Employee Matching
Design Send All quick action for bulk sending Shift Offers
Dashboard with more scannable data
Add/View Visit tasks are equally ultra high frequency and sporadic
Experience Task-to-Visit-Start-Time of under 24 hours
Insights
More cards, less tabs: create info modules with hierarchy
More data immediately visible upon dashboard launch
Info tab provides value; would like to see more condensed data
Navigate to Edit tab for very frequent use
Use Offer tab very frequently, Premium tab frequently, and TA tab occasionally
Need omni-visible client and employee contact info
“It would be an improvement.”
“I think it would enhance [my work].”
Insights
Condense and combine content, sorting new cards and tabs
Upstream and condense Visit Status update UX
Apply/Edit a visit’s Cancel or Hold status
Insights
Make Visit Status UX omni-available, outside of all tabs
Bring Accounting content and condense it into Info tab
Research suggested that all our issues were related to space. So I proposed a space-related solution:
Sidebar UI component
Also known as a “Slidesheet”
Allows more vertical space
Displays complex content or workspaces
Used for heavy subtasks while staying “near” main task
prototype for user testing
I developed an interactive prototype, with specific user tasks, simulating input and functionality in order to test my design proposals.
I developed an interactive prototype, with specific user tasks, simulating input and functionality in order to test my design proposals.
1-on-1 user feedback and testing sessions
1-on-1 user feedback and testing sessions
I organized 1-on-1 user testing sessions with the same participants as the interviews, in a moderated test where users had to complete simple tasks using the prototype.
New progressive disclosure and placement of data fields
Real-time data logic that updates Date, Time, and Duration fields responsively
Added new Event “recurrence” workflow functionality
Merged Calendar & Metric screens; reducing 7 steps to 4
First Impressions
Better hand-off and transition between UX flows
Unify Add Visit and View Visit workflows in fewer screens
Provide quick action to “Create and Open” the newly saved visit
Expand Date and Time feature functionality
Improve logic of Date, Time, and Duration fields
Upstream Shift Offer and develop a Send All action
Add Shift Offer functionality to Employee Matching
Design Send All quick action for bulk sending Shift Offers
Dashboard with more scannable data
More cards, less tabs: create info modules with hierarchy
Mixed reactions: some found new module positions harder to find
Temporary problem: users remarked features’ new locations will become familiar with use
More data immediately visible upon dashboard launch
Condense and combine content, sorting new cards and tabs
Upstream and condense Visit Status update UX
Bring Accounting content and condense it into Info tab
Make Visit Status UX omni-available, outside of all tabs
Discoverability: Visit status UI hard to find
Novelty effect: new feature will become recognizable
So how can we help Schedulers provide better health outcomes?
By allowing them to see more and do more
Unify Add Visit and View Visit flows in fewer screens.
Provide quick action to “Create and Open” new visit
Design a multi-recurrence UX for complex visits
AI Auto-suggestion: Best Employee Selection
Upstream Shift Offer UX; design Bulk Send All quick action
More cards, less tabs: make info condensed and scannable
Make Visit Status UX omni-available, outside of all tabs.
The “Add Visit” modal shows many data entry fields upon launch
Bring Accounting content and condense it into Info tab.
The “Add Visit” modal shows many data entry fields upon launch
25%
Target NPS Score
1000+
DAUs
700+
Customers served
25%
Target NPS Score
1000+
DAUs
700+
Customers served
“Thanks for jumping in head-first into our Scheduling projects and bringing a new and fresh perspective to the team.”
Senior Product Manager
