Alex's Portfolio

ShiftForce Scheduler

OPTIMIZING SHIFT SCHEDULING FOR EFFICIENCY AND CLARITY

Role:

Industry:

Tools:

Sole UX/UI designer

Workforce management / scheduling software

Figma, FigJam

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Viewing by position

Hovering in column + row (Host, Sept 30) and click to add new position on schedule.

New shift drawer with employee selected and hovering over day she is not available.

New shifts have been added and user has to hit 'Publish' to make this schedule live and available.

Showing all dropdowns.

Examples of different states alerting manager about employee conflicts.

Viewing by employee

Viewing by employee along with employee status'/conflicts.

Drawer viewing a specific team member's details.

Ability to approve/deny time off requests right on schedule.

Some hover states detailing more information to manager.

Overview;

I was tasked to redesign ShiftForce's entire product, but this focuses on the scheduler which was the biggest piece. After auditing the existing UX, I noticed room for improvement. It had disorganized UI, inconsistent feature additions, and cognitive overload.

My goals was to create an intuitive, visually clear, and efficient scheduling experience that improved usability for managers and employees.

Problem & Goal;

The Problem

ShiftForce's scheduler feature is a critical tool for managers and employees, but its outdated UI and fragmented additions have made it cluttered, confusing, and inefficient.

For managers, scheduling is a daily task, but the clunky interface and overwhelming number of options make it harder than necessary to create and adjust schedules efficiently.

For employees, the experience is equally frustrating — viewing shifts, requesting time off, and getting schedule updates should be seamless, yet the existing design buries essential actions behind a confusing UI, leading to missed updates and unnecessary friction.

Without a more streamlined, intuitive, and visually clear scheduling system, ShiftForce risks frustrating both key user groups, reducing platform efficiency, and increasing operational headaches for businesses.

Hypothesis

We believe that by redesigning the scheduler to be more structured, visually clear, and user-friendly, we can:

Increase scheduling efficiency for managers by reducing cognitive overload and simplifying shift creation
Improve employee experience by making schedules easier to access and shift updates more transparent
Reduce confusion and frustration by making ShiftForce a more enjoyable, time-saving tool for both managers and employees

How might we redesign the scheduler to make shift management and communication faster, clearer, and more intuitive without overwhelming users with unnecessary complexity?

Research;

To begin the ShiftForce scheduler redesign, I conducted a deep dive into both our existing scheduling flow and competitor platforms, focusing on how scheduling features are structured, how interactions are handled, and where usability improvements could be made.

I first reviewed our current scheduler to break down the full user flow for creating and managing schedules. I mapped out all existing interactions within the scheduler page and identified several pain points where the process felt unnecessarily complex or unintuitive. My primary focus was to answer:

Where are users experiencing friction?
What parts of the interface are overwhelming or unclear?
How can we make scheduling more intuitive while reducing cognitive load?

Competitive Analysis

I conducted a comparative analysis of similar workforce scheduling tools including 7Shifrs, Homebase, Deputy, HotSchedules, and WhenIWork. I focused specifically on how competitors structure their scheduling layout, what interactions they prioritize, how they handle nesting and hierarchy to improve clarity, where we fell behind in terms of usability.

This helped me highlight best practices we could learn from and apply while also surfacing unique opportunities for ShiftForce to improve upon existing industry standards.

Three primary areas for improvement:

1 - Reducing complexity and cognitive load

2 - Improving layout and interaction design

3 - Enhancing scheduling clarity

Proposed Solutions;

Based on my research findings, I focused on simplifying interactions, improving clarity, and reducing unnecessary steps to make the scheduler more intuitive and efficient.

Eliminating Inefficient Drag and Drop Scheduling

One of the biggest usability issues I uncovered was the we were the only scheduling tool still relying on drag and drop to assign shifts. While this may have seemed like a convenient feature, it actually made the process more cumbersome — requiring multiple actions to complete a single shift assignment:

1 - Drag shift onto calendar

2 - Click on it to open the editor

3 - Manually assign it to a position or employee

This did not save time or reduce friction, making it a counterproductive interaction.

I presented these findings to internal stakeholders, explaining that drag and drop was not helping our users and was adding unnecessary complexity. I proposed an alternative: Click to create shifts. Instead of dragging, users could simply click in a specific row (representing a position or employee) and column (representing a date). This would instantly generate a new shift entry and open the shift editor, making scheduling faster and more intuitive.

After presenting my case, I gained stakeholder approval to move forward with this new scheduling flow.

Restructuring Actions for Better Usability

Another major issue was that key scheduling actions were scattered across the interface, making it difficult for users to find what they needed.

To improve usability, I:

✅ Grouped related actions together instead of spreading them across the page

✅ Nested features logically to reduce clutter while keeping them easily accessible

✅ Ensured that common actions like adding shifts, approving time off, and making edits were clearly visible and quick to access

Designing A More Efficient Scheduling Experience

With these improvements, the new scheduler was designed to:

✅ Speed up shift creation with a simple click to create workflow instead of cumbersome drag and drop

✅ Improve clarity by organizing actions into logical groups and reducing UI clutter

✅ Make navigation easier by ensuring important scheduling tools were always accessible

✅ Enhance overall usability by aligning the design with b

A key decision was made replace drag and drop scheduling with a click to create workflow, reducing friction and unnecessary steps.

Final Design;

The final design creates a comprehensive, efficient, and improved upon scheduling experience.

The redesigned scheduler transformed a cluttered, unintuitive experience into a streamlined, efficient, and easy to use scheduling tool for both managers and employees. By eliminating drag and drop scheduling in favor of a faster click to create workflow, restructuring key actions, and improving layout clarity, the new design significantly reduced friction in the scheduling process.

Key improvements in the final design:

Click to create scheduling: users could now simply click in a row and column to create a shift, instead of dragging and then manually assigning it.
Better action grouping: consolidated scattered buttons and controls, making important actions easier to find and use.
Cleaner, more organized UI: reduced visual clutter by nesting related features and presenting information in a more scannable way.
Improved navigation and accessibility: ensured that scheduling tools were intuitive, predictable, and always accessible when needed.

This design supports ShiftForce's goals of being a comprehensive yet easy to use workforce management tool by making scheduling more efficient, improving usability, enhancing employee engagement, and aligning with industry best practices.

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