Sage Feedback

"Feedback from Luke

• Like the way that you broke down the brief and highlighted key words to assist them with their competitor review.

• Impressive Levi’s survey, shows that you can adapt and do appropriate type of research based on the respondents that you have available to you.

• Simple user profiles that help distill the features that they wanted to explore from their initial stages of research. It felt like each stage of their process was firmly linked and grounded to the previous stage. This meant that it was easy to have confidence that their final deliverable ticked the boxes of the brief.

• The branding for Sage Flow felt clean, on-trend and visually different from Sage’s other products. This was great on the one hand because it answered the brief in terms of being ‘fresh thinking’, but overall it might have been too much of a departure from Sage’s visual style. I would have liked to have learnt more about why they chose the geometric style logo and been taken on a journey through their visual design choices.

• Nitpicking here, but a lot of type wouldn’t be accessible to visually impaired users. Something to think about in future projects as it is a requirement in industry and it can influence your overall visual design choices. https://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/ (it will help you greatly if you learn to do this now as opposed to in-industry as it can then become second nature)

• Visual Hierarchy across the app is generally good, however some elements could be more consistent i.e how date is displayed, type size and card visuals.

• The Employer Rota / timetable visually looks like an exciting part of the app. It would have been interesting to see more of the micro interactions around this screen. For example, what happens when a tile is selected , how can shifts be adjusted, removed etc.

• On some scrollable areas that incorporate tiles, I couldn’t initially see that there was more content above the fold. Could cards be placed more obviously so that they are poking out?

• Not sure how the ‘request money’ feature works in the employer’s app. Wouldn’t they automatically have access to funds if they control how employees are paid?

• Hamburger menus don’t test well, it might be worth exploring an alternative solution.

• Like the swap shift feature for employees, are there any other actions that the user should be able to to do here or in other areas of the app such as flagging illness, requesting time off on a particular day etc.?

• Have you thought about how the various apps might look when they’re empty? Is there ‘learning-by-doing’ on-boarding process that you could take the user on?

• On the customer profile, should employers / employees be able to contribute additional key data such as bank details so that they can get paid as quickly as possible?

• Really like the clock-in feature. Could this potentially run in the background rather than be a dialog. Dialog could lead to people ending shift early or closing it by accident. You could go for a Chromecast style approach where any apps working in the background are shown in the header menu.

• Your visual and interaction design journey felt tacked on the end of the presentation. I would make sure that this feels more embedded within your design doc and not just an afterthought. There is some great work that shouldn’t get lost!

• One of the biggest aspects that i love about this project is that you have created an overall consistent suite of apps across the employee and employer spectrum, thinking about the key contexts of which these apps might be used.

• From an interaction design perspective, you have considered key aspects such as mobile hit areas, current design patterns such as cards and overall app architecture, creating a solid pitch for a new Sage service. Whilst there a few key interactions that have been missed out, overall I couldn’t be more impressed for a second year project. I’m excited to see what you both produce next year.

Feedback from Sarah

My favourite was the first group. (Dom and Jack I think).

• Loved their brand guidelines and identity

• User profiles well thought through

• Excellent video

• Competitor research - well presented

I was actually taken back at how well executed and professional this was. Like I mentioned in the session, it was agency standard (if not better) than I’ve seen."

It was very helpful to receive such in-depth feedback from Sage. A lot of the criticism we received was based on the restriction of the presentation. Obviously we couldn't fit all design decisions and processes into a 10 minute pitch, like the inspiration behind the logo etc. These kinds of things are documented in our final Design Document, as well as this online blog.

One criticism we completely overlooked was the process of starting up and on-boarding. We had designed Sign-In pages, but had paid no attention to the concept of building up a business within the system from scratch. This is something we were keen to take forward, as we were extremely happy with our visual style and interactions of our interfaces.

It was very insightful to see such positive comments about our promotion and visual style. We acknowledge it derives quite a lot from Sage's style, however we thought it was a fresh and accessible style for small businesses, instead of quite an intimidating, corporate feel displayed by Sage's competitors.

#LOBBAN