Compensation Tracking

A tool to know how much you’re being paid (and for maximizing payment)

 
 

Timeline

January 2023-August 2023

Working Team Members

Design, Product, Business, Engineering

 
 

Role

I led this effort’s research planning and execution. I filled in gaps of understanding at the start of the work to help inform about user needs and supported iterative design by gathering user feedback.

Summary

Workers care deeply about how much money they can expect to make each month, but this was not easily tracked when we started the project. Our objective was to remove this uncertainty, helping them stay motivated and focused.

 

THE PROCESS

1:1 Interviews

We began by interviewing workers about their current experience tracking their compensation to better understand how tracking is done, if at all, and areas of confusion. We found that many make do with printed, high-level summaries they receive from others, but a better experience would:

  • Help workers feel aware of how their compensation works

  • Help workers find key information they need to make strategic business decisions based on their income

  • Help workers maximize revenue

Concept Testing & Usability Testing

Once designers reviewed the areas outlined above, they designed for nearly 10 unique compensation programs over the summer of 2023. Research was conducted on each program twice. Once, with a concept test to understand whether the areas above were being met and again, with usability testing, to ensure key tasks could be complete and information presented was clear. We conducted 1-hour remote sessions with around 5 workers per round of testing.

THE TAKEAWAYS

  • The concepts were valuable since they were clear - they increased workers’ understanding of the ways they could be paid.

  • The concepts were also valued for helping workers make sure they didn’t leave money on the table. If they were near a threshold, they could make sure they put in a little extra work to meet the compensation deadline in time, something they previously didn’t have enough insight into to achieve.