Usability Testing of a Scheduling Flow

In response to a major scheduling feature upgrade at Profi.io, our team conducted usability testing to ensure the new designs offer a seamless user experience for coaches and consultants.

A woman is sitting in front of her computer with the calendar open. Her schedule is very busy. She is wondering, why it is so hard to book an appointment.
  • The Problem:
  • Profi.io helps coaches and consultants streamline their service delivery. Scheduling is a vital feature that impacts user satisfaction. During the Scheduling Upgrade Project, major changes were made to this flow, requiring user validation to ensure effectiveness.
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  • The Goal:
  • As a UX Researcher, my goal was to ensure the Scheduling Upgrade delivers a superior user experience and the users will easily adapt to the new enhanced scheduling flow.
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  • The Team Involved:
  • UX Researcher, Product Manager, Product Designer, Customer Success Team representative.
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  • My Role:
  • UX Researcher.
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  • Duration:
  • 2 weeks (February 2023).

Research Impact

Usability testing of the scheduling flow had a significant impact on both the product and team operations. The research insights informed prototype design iterations, helping to prevent wasted development time and effort. Additionally, it provided valuable information to the CS team, enabling them to enhance onboarding materials for a smoother user experience.

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Changes in the designs

1. Scheduling a recurrent session has become easier
Usability testing revealed the need to allow users to set up the recurrence settings at the stage of scheduling an appointment. Before, they were able to set up the recurrence only when they created a service.
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This image shows how the recurrence setting were set up on the stage of creating a service. it also contains the explanation of problems that were revealed by usability testing. The list of issues is the following: When recurrence settings are only available at the stage of creating a service: It makes the user to create a new service every time they want to change recurrence It leads to numerous duplicates of the same service It’s easy to skip this step while creating a service, as there are multiple other settings of the service
This image shows how designers implemented the recommendations of the UX researcher in their new designs. They allowed the user to set up recurrence at the stage of booking a service. These are the benefits users get with this design decision: When recurrence settings are available at the stage of scheduling an appointment It prevents the practitioner from creating unnecessary duplicates of the service It makes the scheduling flow more intuitive, as recurrence is connected with the time the session should be booked at It’s less likely the user will skip this step as the recurrence is set up right next to the time of the session

2. Confusing copy has been improved
Usability testing uncovered the issue with confusing copy at the stage of service creation. The copy has been altered that led to a better user experience.  
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This image shows the initial copy in Hosts and Location section of the service creation page. The following issues were discovered during the usability testing: Initial copy in Hosts and Location section confused test participants: “Scheduling type” section raised a lot of questions during the tests. Participants couldn’t figure out what this section allowed them to set up. Even after they got the explanation that the section allowed them to set up how the clients can book a session (with one specific host, multiple hosts or with first available host), they still were unable to decide what to choose as the options were confusing
This image shows the improved copy of Locations and hosts section: Copy improvements: Due to “Scheduling type” is replaced by “Session type” and the short desctiption of the session purpose is added, practitioners can easily understand that they are setting up the way their clients will book a session It’s easier to understand what option to choose as every option has a short explanation of what it means.

3. Design of the slide out has been altered to better serve high volume cases
During usability testing almost all participants raised a concern about high volume of services cases and the convenience of choosing a service from the long poorly structured list. We addressed this concern by altering the design of the slide out.
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This image shows the initial slide out with the service selection for booking. These are the concerns that have been raised by the test participants: Initially, the step of choosing a service when scheduling an appointment didn’t address the high volume case: The services were grouped by collective and by the host, which didn’t allow practitioners to navigate easily across the long list of services The only option to filter the services was by the host name or by searching the name of the service. Both of these options were not very convenient as practitioners can forget the exact name of the service and one host can have multiple services
This image shows the improved version of Service selection. New design better suits the high volume cases: It allows practitioners to filter by hosts, and by the service type The list is grouped by stand alone sessions, packages and programs which allows easier navigation for practitioner The search works not only for the names of the services, but also for the names of the packages and programs, which is more convenient for the practitioner

My Research Process

Planning

1. Collaborate with the team to define research goals and questions.
2. Define the method and KPO to ensure meaningful data collection
3. Write the research plan to stay organized and consistent.
4. Recruit the participants from a diverse sample of users.

Executing

5. Conduct the research to answer the research questions.
Analyze the findings to discover the insights and solutions.
7. Share insights with the team to inform future design decisions.
8. Continue to monitor to ensure excellent user experience.

STEP 1
Collaborate with the team

During the design phase of the Scheduling Upgrade project, I advocated for usability testing on the new designs, an initiative that gained full team support. Collaborating closely with the Product Manager and Product Designer, I defined the research goals and formulated key questions to guide our project.

The goal:

Evaluate the user experience of professionals in creating services and scheduling events using the new scheduling functionality.

Research questions:

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STEP 2
Define research method and KPI

Outlining the goals and questions of the research project helped me to choose the right research method as well as the key performance indicators for this project.

Research method

Qualitative method. Moderated Usability testing.
As our questions prompted for a more holistic answers and the research needed deeper insights and more flexible observation of the user behavior, qualitative method was chosen over quantitative and moderated usability study was chosen to give the researcher more room to probe on the go.

‍Reasons for choosing this method:

Key Performance Indicator

Qualitative Feedback and Thematic Analysis
I chose Thematic analysis to identify common patterns and recurring issues, providing valuable insights into user experiences with the new scheduling functionality.

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STEP 3
Write a research plan

To prepare for moderated usability testing, I created the Research plan using Notion.so. The following components were included in the Scheduling flow Usability Testing Plan:
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STEP 4
Recruit research participants

Participants were sourced from our existing customer base, leveraging close collaboration with the Customer Success (CS) team to ensure alignment with project objectives.

Considerations

Outreach method

Participants were contacted via email, with communication facilitated by a representative from the CS team.

Preparation meetings

Prior to each usability testing session, collaborative meetings were held with the CS team to discuss potential risks and customer nuances. This allowed for tailored questioning and ensured a holistic understanding of each participant's journey with the company.

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STEP 5
Conduct the research

When the participants were recruited and the interviews were scheduled, it was time to execute the plan and conduct the usability testing sessions.
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Raw data collection spreadsheet

The image shows the raw data collection spreadsheet
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STEP 6
Analyze the data

After collecting all raw data, I proceeded with data analysis.

I utilized a Thematic analysis approach to identify common patterns and recurring issues. This method helped me uncover key insights that would be shared with the team to inform necessary design changes to better align with user needs.
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Thematic analysis

The image shows the thematic analysis of the findings from Usability testing sessions
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STEP 7
Share insights with the team and stakeholders

I conducted an interactive session with the stakeholders and the product team in order to share the research insights. During the session, I presented the slide deck with the summary of the research, illustrative evidence of the findings such as screenshots, short videos from the usability testing sessions to illustrate the importance and relevance of the insights.
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Main insights and proposed solutions

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STEP 8
Continue to monitor

After the insights presentation, the design team implemented necessary changes into the design and after validating the design solutions with the stakeholders, the designs were given to developers for implementation.

Following the launch of the upgraded scheduling functionality, we utilized FullStory software to closely monitor the usage of scheduling feature, see the impact of the made improvements and determine possible flaws in the scheduling flow.

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