Syberry

2023

Increasing adoption of a planning tool

UX Research

Behavioural Design

UX/UI

“We weren’t sure what went wrong but seeing the new design and research, it all makes sense.”

Snapshot of project

Info

Syberry created "Syberry Today," an in-house tool, drawing cues from CPU efficiency. The aim was to boost employee productivity via transparent task management.

Challenge

After launching the product, they found only 32% still used the tool after 3 months. They didn’t know why the tool didn’t catch on and didn’t become people’s daily habit of planning their day.

Solution

They were three key problem of why the product failed. People like planning their day differently, they like customising their planning tools and the tool didn’t fit into people’s daily habits. A re-design of the platform was done, tested and launched with the adoption rate being around 74%

My Role

Research

Workshop

Design System

Wireframes

Testing

Key Result

74% increase in usage

Happy users

Happy client

Client

Syberry

What went wrong?

I kicked things off by diving deep into the current platform. I wanted to wrap my head around how this platform let people plan their work. I took a good look at what features existed, looked at the sitemap, and got a feel for how everything flows.

Insight #1

Visually, the design of the platform is a mess. It’s hard to find information, what I need to do to plan my day and generally navigating around the platform.

Why did people not use the tool?

“I plan twice, I plan my week using an excel sheet and then I plan my day using my notepad. Why would I use this platform, it’s not for me.”

After a deep dive in the literature and talking to users on how they plan their work a glaring truth emerged:
- planning methods vary widely, from minimal daily planning to monthly planning.
- how people like using their planning tools, from a simple "take what you get" to full on DIY of planning tools.

Armed with these insights, a look back at the existing platform made things crystal clear. The platform failed as the setup catered to minimalist who cherish a solo planning tool. All other users were left in the cold with some seriously hating the tool.

Insight #2

The platform needs to accommodate how people:
- Plan their work: some plan their work a week ahead, some on the day
- Customise their tools: some customise a lot, some don’t bother

Insight #3

The platform is loved and designed by one small group of users. This meant everyone else hated it as they were not involved in the design of the platform and who needs were neglected.

Insight #4

Based on the 2x2, they are three type of users with different needs:
- Make-doer who plans weekly
- DIY-er who has a multi-level strategy
- Adopter who plans daily

Insight #5

People have different workflows. Some users document their progress every hour, other plan their next task after completing their work, some might forget their task and look back at what they planned in the morning. There’s a level of flexibility needed.

What’s the core challenge?

“I’ll be honest I forget to open Syberry Today. It’s not part of my morning routine.”

In interviews, both the "Make-doers" and "DIY-ers" made it clear that the tool slipped their minds occasionally – no habit formed. Unlike checking emails, where certain work tasks await, the platform just didn't click as a must-check.

Challenge #1

How might we design a flexible planning tool that fits into people’s daily habit?

How to create a better tool?

I ran a workshop for two reason. Firstly I wanted all different type of users to have a voice in generating ideas - making sure every planning style got its moment. Secondly, to ensure we create a habit-forming tool, I wanted everyone to come with ideas for each section of the Hook’s model - a framework useful in creating product that form habits.

The output was an each idea was ranked on a 2x2 prioritisation matrix. This helped guide the cession on which ideas to implement now and which ones to put on the back burner for a future version of the tool.

Does it work?

“This is better than what we have, still not sure what this button do?”

I dove into visual brainstorms, spinning out different ideas found from the workshop. Those ideas shaped a fresh flow, which then went through testing with a diverse batch of users, each embodying our trio of personas.

The result was a success, certainly by the two groups of users that were neglected by the current platform. However, they were still tiny hiccups were users were puzzled by what action to perform and the layout of information on screen. It was found that when they got stuck, they said they relied on their past experience with other planning tools (e.g. Asana and Trello) to try to make sense and guide their decision.

Insight #6

Users looked at past experiences they have with planning tools (e.g. Trello) to help navigate around new platform.

How can we build this?

Around this point of the project, I realised I had to build a design system to ensure consistency and to make it easy for the developers to build the new platform. Taking inspiration of the logo and running some accessibility tests, I created a new design theme and system using Material Design as a backbone.

What’s the final solution?

After some final tweaks, I created a comprehensive deck, some videos and a presentation for the client and developers detailing the full new design. The result was an increase adoption rate being around 74%, happy users and a happy client. This meant as a studio we won more work from them off the back of this project.

Other work

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