Innovation Week

MyHR Mobile

Role

UX Designer

Product Team

OCE Scrum Team

Duration

1 Week

Project

Problem

Given the rise of the multi-generational workforce, the increase in consumers being more geared to mobile-first applications, and the nature of some of users’ roles (branch-based colleagues can’t always access the portal), we felt that a mobile solution integrated with the BarclaysNow colleague app would be a solid option to develop.

Approach

Management asked that we come up with an innovative way of solving the project problem in a way that wasn’t in scope. We were to base our solution on the information, and technology already available. This project was a competition between teams.

We leveraged a 2-day design sprint approach to ensure delivery alongside our primary project work. This project was only to develop a concept for the prototype stage.

Process

  • I began to look at data to assess what problem to solve. We looked at the HR Operations call data to understand what queries are driving the most calls. I identified that ‘General Job Info’ clearly had the largest call volumes, from which we inferred that this category was the highest point of frustration for colleagues. I identified that pay-related queries had the second-largest call volume.

    Based on the data, we both made a decision to address both problems with the same solution to optimise usage and reduce the HR Operations call volume, as this was a clear business need.

  • Ideation

    We collaboratively began to write some features that might solve for the two problem areas we identified on some post-its and put them on a board.

    Once agreed on the features we began to plot out what the interactions would be like for the user in order to keep it seamless and intuitive.

  • Understanding that ‘General Job Info’ related queries were driving the majority of HR Operations call volumes, we made it simple for users to be able to access and prioritised an option to access this at the top of the information hierarchy. Within this area users are able to see the key information that relates to them as a Barclays colleague, and amend any changes in information should they need to.

    With ‘Pay’ queries being our second priority to address we included tiles for them to easily see their salary information and their bonus information.

    When a colleague would click on this we ensured that would be able to see a breakdown of their pay and understand what it’s made up of and what it’s where elements of it go, e.g. tax and NI. On the tile below this we included an option to enable them to view their payslips, and then below that a tile that shows their Barclays stocks and shares and how they are performing.

  • We developed a clickable prototype and a PowerPoint presentation to pitch our concept.

    The deck detailed our supporting research for the concept and we delivered this before walking the audience and panel through the prototype.

    We produced a clickable prototype of the experience for a showcase. The prototype included a number of journeys that we wanted to showcase to give a view of what the colleague experience would be.

    As a result of our pitch and presentation, we came joint first in the presentation, which led to us pitching the prototype to senior project stakeholders. We received positive feedback about the app being directionally where the project wanted to go in the future.

    Unfortunately due to budget and strategic priorities changing, this concept was never built or developed further.

Research & Workshopping

Based on the information we had already collected about our colleagues during the project, I began to put together a Persona and some high-level user stories, leveraging the user stories on our product backlog tickets, to help guide the experience we designed for our users.

Following this exercise I brought them to our ideation session as a tool to reference to ensure we didn’t design for ourselves or for Barclays but for the user, the 80,000+ Barclays colleagues.

After the ideation session, we drew some wireframes to frame the experience and the solution. We then took our board into a room with a whiteboard on which we could draw so we could scale up the wireframes in size and further refine the solution.

Features & Highlights

One of my creative highlight features of the overall app was the AR-enabled bank account nomination, where colleagues could change the account they wanted to get paid into by simply scanning the card of the chosen bank account.

I included this experience in the design because colleagues would normally have to go to a site that isn’t easily navigable to an unintuitive form to be able to execute this transaction. By scanning the card, those with smartphones would be able to change their bank account details in a quick and simple manner.

Chatbot Integration

Although we wanted to enable self-service and keep the HR Operations calls down, we also understood that the option to contact HR would be necessary if colleagues got stuck. We chose to add and assist service through the chatbot capability that was being developed on the project to help address queries that could be quickly solved by surfacing the right content. As a last resort, we enabled an in-app call to HR Operations for more complex issues and queries.