Time Tink
Quick time logging anywhere
Team
Duration
Role
Project type
3 people
2.5 weeks
UX designer
Academy
Client
Climate Reality
Method
Business Analysis
Interviews
Usability Testing
Affinity Mapping
User flow
Design studio
Sketching
Wireframing
Prototyping
The challenge
Time Tink is a time tracking web app for students and connects them with their supervisors. The platform allows institutes to oversee their student's work placement progress. As a start-up project, our client needs to increase current time logging efficiency and learn more about students' needs.
Where to start?
To identify the opportunity for improvements, we conducted a round of heuristic analyses using the best practice design principle. Our study found a lack of guidance for setting up the program and missing error notifications to help users complete their tasks correctly and efficiently. In addition, the option to edit or delete a draft time entry is missing, resulting in a mix of redundant time entries and valuable time entries. Our heuristic analysis findings helped us identify potential areas for improvement we can test with real users and understand more about their needs and motivations.
4
User Interviews
4
Usability Testing
1
Stakeholder Interview
How was the user's experience?
Key trends
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Users could navigate faster if the dashboard is better utilised.
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Users could make mistakes because of missing helpful responses or shown clues.
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Users are likely to miss important information due to overloaded text and misused hierarchy.
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Users do not know how to set up or use the system due to a lack of instructions.
How do students interact with their supervisors?
"Works on either trust or personally working with the student."​
"Hours are not something done at the end but monitored weekly."​
"Students who do casual/part-time shifts are the ones that struggle the most with logging hours."​
"No common that their hours are rejected, unless very sceptical."​
"Supervisors need to monitor student's hours throughout the placement rather than do at the end."​
"Students are encouraged not to take leave during their internships, and left up to the students to just pick up an extra shift."​
How users navigated the current prototype
Sign-up process:
Account setup process:
Log retrospective time entry:
Research finding summary
Our research shows sign-up process, account set-up, dashboard and time logging are key features we need to focus on making them more efficient, because there are the features users spend most time on during our usability testing.
How to tackle the problem
The proposed happy path means a smoother onboarding process, a more informative dashboard, better account setup guidance, and a more intuitive logging form.
Main problem
The current prototype has many extra steps that may be unnecessary and orders that are interruptive.
Sign-up process:
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QR code for downloading mobile access appeared in the middle of the signup process.
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Users were confused with the QR code; they assumed it was mandatory.
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Users did not notice the “log in here” link for the desktop onboarding option.
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Users expected to see the home page instead of the QR code.
Dashboard:
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The live tracking button dominates the page, and users press it without knowing the function.
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Many users expected to see placement progression under "you activity" data.
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Participants had trouble finding time entry history.
Account setup:
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Lack of instruction about where and how to add supervisors.
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Some users were looking for email or chat functions to get in touch with supervisors.
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Users had to invite the supervisor to the organisation page, the assignment on the project page and the time entry page, which is repetitive and confusing.
Time Logging:
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Time input fields had no indications of what to do when a supervisor was assigned.
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The dash lines for start and end times were hard to understand
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There is no clear feedback that the time entry has been saved and where to find the time entry list after saving.
The solution
Reduce the number of clicks and steps required for completing a task and provide comprehensive data for quick review on the dashboard.
Proposed wireframes:
Desktop sign-up process:
Mobile sign-up process:
Desktop dashboard:
Mobile dashboard:
2
2
Further recommendations on existing prototype
