Behind App - Olapa Design Agency
Behind App is a staffing solution for temporary hospitality workers.
Product owners approached our agency seeking assistance in the design and development of their app idea.
Our agency was entrusted with full responsibility for the project, managing every aspect from initial concept through to final delivery. We meticulously designed a user-centric product tailored to meet both market demands and the specific needs of the client. Accessibility was at the forefront of our approach, ensuring the product was inclusive and easy to use for all. Throughout the process, we followed an agile methodology, incorporating multiple design sprints. Each sprint culminated in detailed client feedback sessions, allowing us to fine-tune the product and maintain alignment with the client’s evolving vision.
KEY RESULTS
Reduced recruitment process time by 50%.
Increased worker satisfaction by 40%.
Over 200 employers onboarded within the first 6 months.
We conducted user interviews and surveys with hospitality employers, discovering that the main pain points were time-consuming hiring processes and lack of trained staff.
CHALLENGE
CONTEXT
In Buenos Aires there’s 19.125 hospitality venues, and 60% of them are located within 6 neighbourhoods.
PROBLEM
90% of the venues in Buenos Aires manifest having lack of staff, and struggling to find freelance or temporary employees for two reasons: the recruiting/hiring process takes too much time and resources, and lack of trained staff available.
GOAL
To link employers that are looking to hire freelance staff with employees searching for casual shifts, easing the hiring process.
SOLUTION
An app works as a recruitment agency verifying profiles and experience, and provides tutorials to train staff. Employers publish their search (position, day, time, level of experience, outfit, location), and pay a fee each time they have a successful experience.
DESK RESEARCH
NEWSPAPERS
"End of the year: hiring increases 10%.This year there’s -50% staff available than last year. Bookings and revenue are -25% due to lack of staff. After COVID, unemployed hospitality workers changed industries. People don’t want to get a job ‘on the books’ to not loose government subsidies. There’s staff available but not trained."
VISIT
“Freelancing can be a positive bridge towards a successful career path, it gives young people a first work experience, helps them finding their vocation and generate extra income for their families”
VISIT
SIMILAR APPS
What’s the feedback they are getting from users? This helps us to better understand the needs that are not being met in the market.
REVIEWS
Zonajobs and Indeed don’t have a filter for casual work, and the access to filters and offers is not clear.
Baristas on tap is limited to baristas, doesn’t have many functionalities and doesn’t let you see the rating of baristas.
Most of the searches for casual staff are made by recruitment agencies, there’s no link to the company until later in the process.
PROTO PERSONAS
They were validated with 5 interviews, which provided deeper insight of the users.
JULIA - 31 YO - HR MANAGER - CHACARITA, BA - SINGLE
Julia works for a company that provides a bar service for events. She loves the lifestyle working in hospitality. She’d love to travel more, and create a system to ease the work flow and be able to turn off her phone and disconnect after 6pm.
MOTIVATIONS
- Having a light and easier work flow.
- Having more free time and disconnect.
PAIN POINTS
- Constant lack of staff and last minute drops.
- Not successfully attacting casual staff that commits.
- Solving last minute staff problems outside her working hours (being always on call).
GOALS
- Creating a system and digitalize the database of the company to save time checking employees’ availability.
- Helping employees to get training and gain experience.
She would be an ideal user because she spends a lot of time trying to attract casual staff, interviewing them, checking availability, closing dates for events, handling last minute absences, looking for replacements.
PABLO - 44 YO - CAFE OWNER - PALERMO, BA - MARRIED 2 KIDS
Pablo opened his cafe 2 yrs ago, after the pandemic. He’s hired 4 employees, and has someone he calls on weekends or to cover shifts. He searches staff on Bumeran, going to other cafes (when he sees someone he likes offers an interview), through employees, or a Barista group on whatsapp.
MOTIVATIONS
- Be faster at solving operational problems at the cafe.
- Investing more time in the creative side of the business.
PAIN POINTS
- Constant lack of staff.
- Struggle to find trained staff and keeping them.
- Having to cover shifts.
- Experienced staff doesn’t adapt well to the operation of the cafe.
GOALS
- Having more free time.
- Growing the business.
Pablo would be an ideal user of the app because he’s looking for trained staff to cover casual shifts that he can contact last minute and live nearby.
We defined the core problem as the need to quickly connect employers with available, verified temporary workers.
BENCHMARKING
We analyzed the competition and found their strengths and weaknesses.
STRENGTHS
- Fast and simple to register and hire.
WEAKNESSES
- Doesn’t have many functionalities.
STRENGTHS
- Has a clean design, it’s pleasant to read through.
WEAKNESSES
- The process of publishing a search is exhausting, too long, can be good for jobs with high specificity.
STRENGTHS
- The process of registering and hiring is simple and fast.
WEAKNESSES
- The quality of design is not very good.
PROTO PERSONAS
INTERVIEWS + EMPATHY MAP
They help us validate our proto personas and get a better understanding of our users.
5
Interviews with people in hospitality in charge of hiring employees.
4
Say they are frustrated by the lack of commitment.
3
Pay attention to the personality and image, they hire people that they find interesting. Prefer young, with little experience and moldable employees.
THINK AND FEEL
- Personality and kindness are everything. Wants employees to have personal projects outside work.
- Prioritizes attitude, availability, looks.
- Prioritizes youth and inexperience so that they can learn from scratch. Students that can/need work weekends.
- For some roles, prefers young men that can carry weight and that are looking for part-time hours.
- Prioritizes experience, looks for the best in each area.
SAY AND DO
- She’s the Operational Manager of a cafe since the start of the project.
- She’s the HR Manager of a bar service at events.
- He’s the Bar Manager at a renowned restaurant.
- He’s the Co-owner of a beer bar in Palermo.
- He’s the HR Manager of an international chain of bars.
PAINS
- Experienced employee that can’t adapt to other ways of operating.
- Struggles to find people that want to learn and improve.
- Lack of commitment, no shows.
- Covering shifts on days off when there are no shows.
- Bartenders migrating jobs often due to new opportunities, struggles to keep them.
GAINS
- Fast replacement when someone is missing. As simple and quick as it can be.
- Having someone available to work all hours.
- That new employees are already trained.
- Hiring a young staff brings new energy and social media attraction.
- Finding people who stay for a long time.
Through brainstorming and design sprints, we developed various concepts, ultimately focusing on a mobile-first solution that prioritizes simplicity and speed.
CARD SORTING
Utilising Optimal Workshop, we got a more accurate definition of the content of each screen and got a better idea of the user’s mental map.
SIMILARITY MATRIX
DENDOGRAM
- “Favourite employee” and “chat with employee” were grouped together as expected.
- “Language” and “help” were grouped together, maybe they were thought of as part of settings.
- “Location of the shop” and “uniform” were linked together referring to the workplace, as well as “location of employee”.
- The rest were grouped together as filters with no difference between employee search or job offer.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
After the card sorting we organised the content for the user to follow the happy path. The architecture was iterated through the process and here we can see both the initial and final.
BEFORE
AFTER
USER FLOW
To better design the experience, we explored the paths the user can follow to accomplish the task.
TASK FLOW
HAPPY PATH
We created high-fidelity prototypes of the app, focusing on an intuitive interface where employers can post jobs and workers can easily apply.
CRAZY 8
HOME SCREEN
We decided the Home screen is the main functionality, to Book, and based our design on #6: lists with information being displayed in order so that the form can be completed successfully. For screens with cards, #2 was chosen.
WIREFRAMES
REGISTRATION
After the validation process:
- The button “book” was turned into “register” as a CTA to finish the process, and turned inactive until the necessary fields are filled.
LOW FIDELITY
MID FIDELITY
HIGH FIDELITY
BOOK
After the validation process:
- The time fields were placed underneath the date, as everyone was skipping them.
- The shop fields. If you have your shops loaded, you can choose from them. Otherwise you can enter the address and the shop field is made inactive.
- Buttons were made larger.
- Covering shifts on days off when there’s no shows.
- The offer shift secondary button was confusing as it was before the main one, so it was placed above.
LOW FIDELITY
MID FIDELITY
HIGH FIDELITY
SEARCH
After the validation process:
- Category headlines were taken off and placed inside the fields.
- Search by location was narrowed to radius search in the map, taking the areas checkbox off.
- An illustration was added changing if you are looking for a barista or a bartender.
LOW FIDELITY
MID FIDELITY
HIGH FIDELITY
MOOD BOARD
LOGO
- “Behind” is the word used in the industry when working in a team, in a certain space, to flow together and stay safe/avoid accidents.
- The elements were placed very closely but one behind the other.
- In the animated version, a drop turns into a little ball that comes down empty and gets out full.
- The ball represents the toggle switch: barista or bartender.
UI KIT
ACCESSIBILITY
We analyzed the color contrasts through colour.adobe.com aiming for AAA, to make sure they are accessible to the majority of the population.
Usability tests with 5 users confirmed the ease of navigation and effectiveness of the recruitment process. Based on feedback, we made adjustments to improve the registration and search functions.
USABILITY TESTS: EXECUTIVE REPORT
WHAT WORKED
- Register process: was fast and intuitive.
- Create an offer: it was intuitive.
- Book button: visible and catches the eye.
- Review profile: fast.
- Reject button: easy to find on the screen.
- 1 out of 5: said the word “bookear” is understood and she likes it.
- 2 out of 5: icon “help” in the Book screen provided information.
WHAT DIDN'T WORK
- 1 user doubts between Login and Register.
- 3 users, in the Book screen, skip “time”, go straight to “date” without checking the fields above.
- 1 user gets confused with the word “freelancer”.
- 1 user gets annoyed having to go through the register process, wants to do it with Google.
- 1 user doesn’t understand how to change the date.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Time can go after date.
- You should be able to fill any field without a specific order.
- Essential fields should have an *.
- Book screen: an option to clarify if food will be provided or not, breaks, tips, tell a bit about the operation of the shop, if it’s only takeaway.
