Caroline David, Claire Szapary, Charisa Shin, and Michael McGovern
What does a seamless experience look like for student workers logging their weekly hours on the online Workday platform?
By conducting a small-scale usability study, we can gain insight into the the difficulties of the current system and propose improvements to the business systems team at Computing & Information Services (CIS), who regularly communicate with Workday to suggest improvements to the platform.
In this team, I took the lead on designing the steps for the task analysis, recruiting participants, and conducting interviews over Zoom.
User flow for this task analysis
TASK ANALYSIS PROCEDURE
Subjects were prompted to "log a total of 3 hours for the week," and were observed as they navigated the web flow
10 college age students, 5 with previous experience with Workday and 5 with no previous experience. 8 females, 2 males, age range 17 to 22.
Collecting quantitative data (time between tasks) and qualitative data (user feedback) from the task analysis
Tests were conducted remotely via Zoom, and were observed and recorded by research team members
Example task analysis
findings and proposed solutions
1. landing page navigation
New Workday users expressed confusion during the initial step. As one tester explained it:
“The button that says ‘This Week (0 hours)’ means that if I click that button, I’ll log zero hours for this week."
Her mental model dictated that she should select the total number of hours that she worked on this first screen, but there was no option to log 3 hours.
All three of these buttons lead to the same page. In an improved user flow, this initial landing page can be eliminated.
2. Calendar navigation and time entry
Testers remarked that the calendar looked like When2Meet or Google Calendar, so new users assumed they could drag and drop time blocks on the calendar to log their hours. Once the users
Once users did drag and drop, they encountered a popup where they had to enter the hours again. The system did not behave according to their expectations from experience, and this caused confusion and error.
3. time entry Error
It requires a higher cognitive load to deal with an error or a system acting in an unfamiliar way. New users noted that they didn't understand what the error was referring to.
4. TASK COMPLETION
"There should just be a clear button that says 'Log Your Hours.'”
New users reported confusion with how to finish the task, because they thought that their hours had been submitted after clicking "review." This is because on some screens you needed to scroll down to see the blue "submit" button.
MOCK-UPS
MODIFICATION: Calendar navigation and time entry
Auto-fill hours from drag and drop calendar.
MODIFICATION: Calendar navigation and time entry
Error is included with a clearer description and a red box around the field that needs to be changed.
MODIFICATION: Task Completion
The button labeled "Review" is changed to "Review and Submit." The "Submit" button is always visible in the pop-up box, and there is an additional warning in red text that the task has not been completed.
Impact
The findings of the user research and the suggested improvements to the platform were compiled into a report for the business systems team at Computing & Information Services (CIS) at Brown. This research will inform the next version of the Workday platform and will impact future generations of student workers at Brown.
The suggested improvements will help Workday to remain competitive. Its ease of use will improve satisfaction among students and faculty at Brown, which may make it a more appealing options for other universities who are looking to purchase a financial management solution.
ADDITIONAL PROCESS AND DETAILS
Experimental design
- We hypothesized that users would have difficulty with navigation, focusing in on a few steps that would cause a lack of usability according to the background research.
- We also hypothesized that new users would take significantly longer to complete these tasks than those who already use Workday regularly
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
What were the most difficult / confusing steps in completing the task?
What changes would you implement to solve those difficult / confusing steps?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult would you rate the task?
quantitative RESULTS
- the average total task time completion and the average time for sub-task 3 took significantly longer for the new user group than for the regular user group
- the data did not support the hypothesis that sub-tasks 2 and 3 would take significantly longer for new users
- these results were interpreted with the understanding of flawed statistical methods when the sample size is only ten, and was synthesized with qualitative findings
