Scheduling
Starting early 2022, I worked with a PM, Customer Success, and an engineering team to redesign Movista's project scheduling solution. This project was part of comprehensive update of Movista's platforms.
The design phase of the project is complete, with an early alpha release coming to select clients early next year.
Discovery
Client's had been using the previous scheduling solution for 7 years. During that time, our team had collected and learned a lot about the current solution from client interactions (interviews, meetings, field visits, etc.).
Interviews
We interviewed members of our client success team and some of our clients to gather insights.
We learned that we only had one client who was actively using Scheduling because the original feature was built to their requirements. Other clients were using different scheduling methods outside our platform that had additional features.
Competitive Analysis
We surveyed digital calendar best practices and design patterns to make sure that our solution would have the features clients needed, while having the affordances they were used to in other digital calendars.
Define
From our interviews and experience we derived a number of ways that the scheduling portal needed to improve in order to have better product-market fit. I'll discuss two here.
More Intuitive
The old portal required a lot of clicking around to get items on the schedule and wasn't very clear what you had actually done.
Missing Information
The old portal had limited search and filtering capabilities. It also didn't account for user availability, leading to a lot of guesswork and rescheduling.
Problem Statement
As a Home Office Scheduler, I need the ability to quickly schedule projects assigned to me without giving Reps too much work or during their off hours.
Design
Sketches and Prototypes
Sketching wireframes helps me quickly identify what I don't understand about the problem so that I can ask better questions. It also helps me work through potential solutions and identify good ideas.
High Fidelity Iterations
I also do a lot of experimentation in Figma and other prototyping tools. I aim to always have some kind of artifact to show at project checkin's, design reviews, or other encounters with stakeholders. Having something for everyone to look at and critique frequently was instrumental to the success of this project.
Accessibility
There's a lot of data points involved with scheduling a project that a user needs to see to make informed decisions. Many users asked to see more color to make things like project priority or status stand out. We made sure to use color lightly and accessibly.
Deliver
This feature is still being developed, but early results are being met with positive feedback. It's much more intuitive and users love the ability to drag and drop projects onto employee's schedules. The search and filtering help the Scheduler find the most qualified and available employees to fulfill project requirements.
