Client: Branch App

Methods: Competitive Audit, Kano Analysis, Journey Map, Rapid Prototyping

Tools: Axure RP, Sketch, Adobe Illustrator

Branch is a workplace scheduling software that was made for hourly workers and their managers. The Branch app allows its users to post their work schedules and message one another directly to discuss trading or transferring of shifts. Managers use the Branch app to upload employee schedules and approve any shifts that employees trade using the app. The stakeholders at Branch wanted to add features to the app and asked our team for ideas.

To begin, I conducted a competitive analysis of several Branch competitors. Knowing what the competition had to offer helped me to better analyze the Branch app itself. It seemed pretty clear that Branch is a tool designed to improve workplace communication between managers and employees. Thinking of the product in those terms, and remembering some of my past experiences as a manager in the service industry, helped me to imagine ideas for features that could benefit users of the Branch app.

Getting my hands dirty

To better understand the thoughts and feelings of a Branch customer, I created a customer journey map. This journey map also helped to guide me as I started to sketch out my prototype ideas for the Branch app. Each member of my team contributed prototype ideas for the app and several were selected for further development. I felt proud when my prototype was one of the ideas that was selected by the team.

Our user testing during the Branch project included a Kano analysis. Through this process, Branch users were able to tell us which of our prototype ideas were most desirable. Again, my prototype idea was a hit with users.

To give the stakeholders at Branch a better idea of the feature I was proposing, I created an interactive prototype using the program Axure RP.  I also submitted a report connecting several of the designs my team worked on with the customer journey map that I had created earlier.

On the Branch project our team worked rapidly in all phases of our research, design, prototyping and testing efforts. This project was about rapid work, done with care.

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