Eliminating Context-Switching in the Digital Workspace.
Users are constantly seeking ways to streamline their workflows and eliminate context-switching. This led to a pivotal question for our team: What are the critical user needs and design considerations for integrating Workday functionalities—specifically time off, expenses, and coworker information lookup—into Google Chat™ in a way that truly empowers users to manage their Workday requests more intuitively and streamlines their daily workflows?
My comprehensive research journey outlined in this case study demonstrates how we addressed this challenge, leveraging deep user insights to embed powerful Workday capabilities directly into Google Chat, dramatically improving efficiency and user satisfaction.
Recruitment
Power users of Workspace who use Workday for PTO requests and Clock in/out procedures.
Method
60 minute 1:1 Remote Moderated IDI's via Google Meet with a Figma Prototype to simulate Chat.
Overview
Validated that the extension would eliminate friction, as Workday is considered cumbersome.
Impact
Successful public launch with support for further research on NLP rather than typed commands.
Key Insights
The feedback highlighted a need to move Workday's core tasks (like Time Off requests and approvals) into a fast, intuitive chat interface to bypass daily logins and cumbersome navigation. This approach prioritizes button-based interactions over command lines, leverages conversational AI for quick queries, and crucially integrates time-off approvals directly with the user's calendar to automatically mark them as "Out of Office," saving time and improving planning.
Participants indicated that the integration would be faster and more efficient than tab switching between Workspace and Workday. Alleviating pain points such as 2Factor Authentication, and improved findability as Workday was deemed difficult for feature discoverability.
Enhanced Speed and Workflow
1
Participants expressed a desire to see a calendar when requesting time off to assist with any potential user error and increased visibility to calculate remaining PTO balances. My research encouraged further testing on incorporating this into the existing user interface.
PTO and Calendar Integration
2
In the simulated experience, participants had to work with typed commands to complete CUJs (i.e., @Workday/PTO. To reduce strenuous recall, I encouraged the team to explore the ability of adding button to this experience rather than commands after the user invokes the integration.
Reducing Cognitive Load
3
Project Gallery
