Discover WorkBook's Latest UI and UX Improvements

Cognitive scientist Don Norman, also known as the Father of UX is credited for coining the phrase ‘user experience’ and describes that the “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.

This year the Deltek WorkBook team realigned its focus and asked the question - How do we consider all aspects of the end-users interaction not only for new features but also existing functionality?

The answer to that question began with the design principles that are at the core of what the Deltek UX team do and they are:

• Tame the chaos
• Empathize
• Build trust

Taming the chaos is about making the products our customers use simple and familiar. Making it as easy as possible to learn to use our products and for it to be clear and memorable as to how to do things.

Empathizing is about knowing our customer. Seeking to understand who they are and how they work.

Building trust is about making our customers feel confident and in control of what they are doing and provide customers with that confidence.

And it is these principles that have guided the approach taken. 

One of the biggest changes you will see is that WorkBook is easier on the eyes. We have softened the colour palette so that there is not as much vibrant colour competing for attention. We have toned down the contrast in the UI so that the dark and light values are not as extreme as they were before and increased the amount of space around elements so that they have some breathing room.

The iconography style has been standardized and icon use rationalized. Imagery simplified to 2 dimension mono chromatic icons and the use of colour icons reduced. Lessening visual noise for the user.

Visual consistency and behavioural consistency has also been addressed. Ensuring that a piece of functionality not only looks, feels the same but also behaves the same way wherever you encounter it. That is also something that we will be continuing as we forward with making improvements to WorkBook’s UX.

Over the next few releases we will continue to standardise views, create consistency, reduce visual noise and improve UI design. We will also be looking to address user experience and process flow efficiencies across a few key areas.

• Scheduling
• Finance
• Time sheets 

Within Scheduling we are looking to simplify. Rationalize multiple views and consolidate functionality without losing the range of operations that client has come accustomed to. Meaning that simple actions can be made within a single view rather than have to move from one view to another.

For the Finance module it is all about the efficiency of the process flows.  Spending time mapping out and analyzing current process flows. Identifying those marginal gains that cumulatively have a large impact on time efficiencies and cost savings.

For timesheet entries we will also be looking at the UX. Making the placement of timesheet entry paths that are available in WorkBook more transparent, reducing the number of clicks and movement between views to create a timesheet entry.

The Mobile App will also form part of our focus. Adding the ability to create and submit Mileage entries and to allow the action of approval or rejection of all submitted entries via the mob app.

We are also investing more time into understanding how our customers use WorkBook. This goes beyond capturing user enhancement requests and pain points. It’s about understanding the why. Not just taking things at face value but addressing them in that way that will alleviate not just symptom but bigger underlying challenge.

This is as close as we can get to experiencing these things ourselves and enables us to build the empathy needed to come up with a solution that best suits our customers.

This is why we need you! Your feedback is key in us delivering the changes that you want and need. Delivering changes that you require to function effectively and efficiently as a business.