Give the right message at the right time.
Be friendly and upbeat. After all, these people just landed a cool job!
Don't add to the users' already challenging job. Just show them how to schedule their hours.
In the original version, the screen shows the user all the information at once. They’re expected to remember everything, placing an undue cognitive load on them at a time when everything is new.
During my audit, I took a moment to create a scrappy version of this content with the ideas chunked together. When I tested this concept, this screen performed well, as the subheads made the information scannable and easier to comprehend
Before launching this screen, we cut a lot more copy. I worked with my stakeholders to make sure we included only what the user needed to know at this point.
After the experience launched I had an opportunity to think about a future state. I tightened up the headline, focused on the hierarchy, and moved messages to other contextually relevant areas of the experience.
During the audit, I discovered that some messages in the experience weren't helpful (some simply repeated the issue, and hourly ranges weren't specific). To show the user the way, I created a scrappy version of the screen during my audit. I then went to my partners to talk about why we need to tell the user how to resolve the error themselves.
After getting some direction, I worked with my partners to audit the live experience — discovering how errors could be avoided in the first place. In cases where errors can’t be prevented, we tailored relevant messages.
In this iteration, we led with the action the user needed to take to resolve the issue and made sure it was simple. Still, we wondered whether the bare minimum approach was the best option.
Recognizing that many personal and unforeseen factors go into creating a schedule, we launched with a headline that was less precise. We made the headline broad enough to cover everything a user could do to resolve their error.
The original screens had a lot of content. We determined that some info (mostly at the top of the screen) should also be visible to the user in other channels outside the product.
We dropped the language around “minimum” and “maximum” hours, and went with ranges. It simplified and made the content easier to read.
Before we launched, we moved the content to the left, believing the amount of hours the user had scheduled would be the most important information.
With new designers and PMs, we rethought the experience so we didn’t need a panel of “rules” to explain what the user needed to do. In this ideal state, we replaced the rules with more contextual messaging.
Judging the content’s performance (separately from the design) is very difficult. We overhauled the old experience, and the issues people are having with schedules are very different from last year. In many ways, that’s a success, but a success that was hard to judge quantitatively.