UKG Kronos

I began by investigating why the UKG Kronos mobile app used by over 40 million employees was failing its users. As a former user myself, I drew on firsthand experience to identify design gaps and establish context for a user-centered redesign.

UKG Kronos is a widely used workforce management mobile app with over 40 million users. Despite its scale, the mobile experience significantly lags behind its web counterpart. With a dismal 1.4-star rating across the App Store, common user complaints point to poor usability, unclear UI, and missing key features.

To ground my redesign in user behavior, I performed a heuristic analysis and conducted qualitative interviews with 10 coworkers. This helped me uncover key pain points like unclear navigation, missing features, and low task success rates.

To establish a foundation for the redesign, I began with a detailed evaluation of the existing UKG Kronos mobile application. This process identified several critical usability breakdowns that directly impacted employee workflows. While I had personal familiarity from using the app myself in past roles, I wanted to ensure my analysis was objective and rooted in broader user feedback.

To better understand where the UKG Kronos mobile app was falling short, I conducted a heuristic evaluation across each major screen using Jakob Nielsen’s usability principles. This allowed me to systematically identify UI/UX violations, information hierarchy issues, and functional breakdowns that negatively impact users.

I paid close attention to visual inconsistencies, unclear navigation structures, and task flows that didn’t align with standard mobile UX patterns. Some of the most frustrating elements included unclear page transitions, missing home buttons, and the absence of touch feedback on key actions.

Below are my findings based on the evaluation:

To ensure I wasn't designing from personal bias alone, I conducted user interviews with ten coworkers: six men and four women between the ages of 32 and 50. These sessions were a mix of in-person and virtual, each lasting around 30–40 minutes.

I structured the interviews to uncover how employees were actually interacting with the app in their daily workflow. My focus was to surface usability pain points, identify missing features, and understand how those issues impacted their productivity and satisfaction.

After conducting 10 user interviews and auditing over 15 screens across mobile and web, I identified 7 major usability violations that directly impacted task success, user trust, and overall satisfaction.

Here’s a breakdown of the most critical issues, framed against Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics:

I transitioned from research into defining early-stage solutions, using wireframes and system patterns to explore and map out improvements. These foundations helped guide scalable, user-centered design decisions throughout the process.

Before jumping into the redesign process, I mapped out key user flows to ensure the redesign addressed the right problems. I sketched out low-fidelity wireframes focused on core tasks like checking timecards, submitting time off, and viewing schedules.

The goal here is to focus on taking user feedback and pain points and turning that into a polished product.

Rather than designing screen by screen, I built out reusable components to make sure every visual and interactive element aligned with the core experience: simple, functional, and human-centered. This design system serves as a response to the usability breakdowns I uncovered earlier.

By defining the system upfront, I saved time during iteration and ensured my designs were accessible, clean, and consistent across all screens.

Here are my top focus:

• Typography: I selected clear, readable type with strong hierarchy to support fast scanning and reduce visual fatigue.

‍• Color system: I introduced an accessible palette with better contrast ratios to improve clarity, especially for reading timecards and schedules.

‍• Buttons & forms: I established consistent spacing, sizes, and states (default, hover, disabled) to give users clearer feedback and reduce accidental taps.

‍• Iconography: I replaced vague or redundant icons with clearer, labeled alternatives to reduce hesitation and guesswork.

• Feedback & alerts: I introduced toast messages, confirmations, and visual feedback for common actions like submitting a request or logging out, something users specifically asked for.

With the design system in place and user flows mapped, I transitioned into high-fidelity designs. My focus was on visual clarity, accessible UI patterns, and integrating key features like pay stubs and time-off requests into the mobile experience. Every component was guided by the system I created and validated against earlier usability pain points.

I redesigned the login, home, alert, timecard, schedule, and requests screens with a clean visual hierarchy, added accessibility-focused features like shift summaries and comment options, and prioritized clarity in navigation. Many updates were inspired by the missing functionality users pointed out like saving login info, previewing pay stubs, and confirming actions.

Each component followed the visual system I built earlier, allowing for faster iteration and a more unified experience across the app. Every decision I made was grounded in usability feedback and centered around helping users complete tasks more confidently, with less friction.

As part of the high-fidelity redesign, I restructured the core navigation into five clear, functional tabs: Home, Benefits, Schedule, Earnings, and More. Each tab was mapped to users’ most frequent tasks, reducing cognitive load and improving access to key features.

• Added save username, recovery methods, view password, and register account to speed up login time.

• Added UKG Kronos app guide to ensure users that they can maximize the potential within the app and its features.

• Added a greeting message that welcomes users to create empathy and a safe user browsing experience.

• Added a horizontal swipe notification alert display to ensure that users do not miss any important news.

• Redesigned “Timecard” tab to fit with ongoing theme and aesthetic.

• Added the option for time away, inbox and statistics that will allow the users to quickly access their requests and points system.

• Hamburger menu contains features that cannot be combined within the bottom navigation bar.

• Sorted different tabs and placed them according to their functionality through personal, quick links, and files category.

‍• Added the search functionality feature for easier accessibility for users to search for what they need.

• Created proper organization by breaking down notification messages corresponding to their delivery time.

‍• ‍Added “Mark all as read” option for one click view on all messages.

‍• Check mark box allows users to mark messages specifically during a certain timeframe as viewed.

‍• Color of the notification now corresponds to their perspective actions.

‍• Added message views as pop ups to ensure an easier viewing experience by prioritizing the message’s subject, time delivered, message details, and the action that the message contains (if applicable) made by the users.

• Grouped different categories of messages according to the users’ need for easier access and viewing.

• Redesigned and organized tabs on the “Timecard” screen to fit the correct shift date by displaying start, lunch break and end time.

• Added arrow options to let users view and track their history of how many hours they’ve worked.

• Added option to view week report to summarize user’s full worked week.

• Highlight necessary information (S2) such as work hours to alert users more on what is important.

• Added the ability to view users’ shifts (S2) in details and allow users to leave and submit comments.

• Prioritize important information through visual clarity by presenting clear and simple messages.

• Redesigned entire interface of “Schedule” screen to feel more modern and simple to help alleviate users’ tasks.

• Added arrow navigation to allow users quickly move from one date to another without going back.

• Added shift display, weather tracking, and news to prioritize user needs and prevent leaving the app.

• Help easing users navigation and tasks by adding call-in and request cover options to save time.

• Displaying proper shift info with coworkers on shift (S2) to keep users well informed at all times.

• Pop up menu contains list of useful tools (S3) and key legends to help increase employees experience.

• Redesigned “Requests” page interface and categorized each request based on their specific kinds.

• Redesigned requests summary page (S2) as pop ups to allow users to quickly exit and navigate easier through different requests.

• Added status bar to indicate the current status of the user request.

• Transformed the “add” button into a “create a new request” button with proper visual highlights to add more context and for easier finding.

• Added filter tabs to help users quickly sort through their requests.

I redesigned the request flow to feel more intentional and user-friendly. From the timecard screen, users can view detailed shift data and submit contextual comments tied directly to a specific day.

Once submitted, users get immediate confirmation feedback, something that was previously missing and led to confusion.

I also introduced a dedicated "Request Cover" screen where users can select replacement shifts, add context, and receive submission feedback within a clean, responsive interface.

Previously, users couldn’t access their full paystubs or earnings breakdown through the mobile app, forcing them to switch to a desktop version just to see basic payroll information.

Users can also access full pay history, filter by date, and download tax documents.

This new system ensures users have full control over their financial information without needing the desktop version.

To help users track and manage their time-off and shift swap requests, I redesigned the account overview with a modular layout.

The home screen now surfaces key alerts, pending approvals, and quick action buttons. The inbox clearly separates shift requests from updates, while the time-away tab shows real-time status updates with a visual timeline for each request.

This level of clarity gives users peace of mind when managing requests.

These supporting screens cover specialized flows like request summaries and detailed shift info. I added confirmation messages, cleaner alignment, and stronger affordances for interactions like commenting or editing a request.

The "Create a New Request" action is clearly labeled and accessible from the bottom CTA, streamlining the process for repeat users.

To validate my redesign, I conducted in-person usability testing with the same 10 participants from the interview phase. I walked each person through a prototype with task-based prompts that mirrored real employee actions, like checking a timecard, viewing a pay stub, or submitting a time-off request.

Each task was designed to test specific improvements I made from information clarity to interaction feedback. I gradually increased task complexity to observe how well users navigated the flow on their own.

Here are my results:

These numbers showed a dramatic improvement in clarity, navigation, and task completion compared to the original app. The confirmation messages, reorganized screens, and stronger visual hierarchy played a big role in reducing confusion and increasing user confidence.

The testing not only confirmed that my solutions worked, but also gave me a few final insights I could carry into future iterations. Overall, the redesigned experience helped users complete their tasks faster, with less guesswork and more control.

After finalizing the full experience from micro-interactions to usability testing, it was time to step back and reflect. This project was not just about redesigning an app but was about solving real problems with intention. I learned how to listen more closely, think in systems, and make design decisions that genuinely improve people’s day-to-day experience.

One of the toughest parts of this project was navigating the balance between user needs and limited data. I only had access to feedback from ten participants, which made it difficult to predict how certain features might scale. Still, I had to make executive decisions like bringing key desktop features into the mobile experience because they aligned with what users repeatedly asked for.

Another challenge was staying grounded in the “why” behind every decision. Throughout the process, I pushed myself to ensure every design choice was tied to a real pain point, not just aesthetics. That focus kept the project on track, even when it meant challenging early assumptions.

This project taught me the impact of user-centered design when paired with clarity and consistency. What started as a visual update evolved into a full UX rethink and it made me fall deeper in love with product design.

I saw firsthand how even small improvements like layout adjustments or confirmation states can build trust and save users time. These details added up to something bigger: a smoother, more intuitive experience.Most of all, I learned that design is never finished.

There’s always more to learn, more to test, and more to improve. That mindset drives everything I do as a designer and it’s what keeps me excited for what’s next.