The following is a collection of work from three years at Paylocity. Myself and another designer were responsible for all user experience designs for three products, which was the most for a small team in the company. The following work also still exists in the Paylocity product suite. And outside of minor UI changes as the design system has evolved, the foundation of the experience remains the same as it was when myself and my team designed it.
The company was expanding on its time management offerings in their Web Time product to include a more robust time card (manager) and timesheet (employee) experience. Myself and another UX Assassin got down to work doing explorations with stakeholders, design system teams, and some research specialists to explore the goals of the project. They netted out as follows.
Flexibility for multiple employee types. We discovered through the creation of some different character personas, that between factory floor employees who may work different jobs during the day, and folks that kept a tight, consistent schedule with a few breaks, there needed to be a flexibility to this product that would serve all employee types. We landed on day and week views, with favorites for repeated work or positions.
Cross functionality with the Paylocity mobile app. While making such a robust app experience have a fully flushed mobile component would be challenging, the goal was to offer the best possible experience to the mobile user.
Tablet Punch Kiosk App. We also decided that a part of time tracking that would be valuable for the brand and the end user was a brandable punch kiosk app. This way, we could empower or clients to provide a seamelss experience that could provide a moment of joy.
The same team set out on one of the more complex apps in the Paylocity suite... the scheduler. This was a glacially deep product that would allow managers of teams of all sizes to build schedules for their teams. These schedules would be communicated to the employees via the mobile app, punch kiosks, and other means of communication based on the employee and company preferences. The goals were as follows.
Reusable design language. The schedule would move between other apps in the Paylocity suite, and because of the complexity of this product, it was gonna need its own design language.
Cross functionality with the Paylocity mobile app. There would obviously be a need for mobile functionality within the Paylocity mobile app, but what we wanted to focus on was making sure some of the more mobile-natural features had a chance to shine in the mobile app. Things such as shift swapping between employees, and using notifications and messaging to alert employees when there was an open shift for them to be able to pick up.
Convert complexities and headaches to intuitive usability and possibly ... joy. Building a schedule seemed to be a headache for managers who were responsible for the task. Between building reusable jobs, templates, and adding a drag and drop functionality to our desktop app, we hoped to bring moments of joy to what was previously a brutally, tedious task.
The expense team I was brought on to was about to begin work on an expense reporting mobile app that would be employee-facing. The goals of this one were pretty clear ... make an intuitive and enjoyable expense reporting app that would address the three layers of an expense report; the report, the expenses themselves, and the receipt collection.
We dug into a ton of research with co-workers and friends and family. Due to the restraints of Paylocity being a pay to play app, we had to use the resources we had access to. And initially, we wanted to make a clear and determined flow in the app. But the research was eye opening, and showed us that amongst everyone we interviewed, everyone had a different approach to their expense reports.
Some people would take photos of receipts immediately, some folks would start a report before a work event, or at the beginning of each month and build out their expenses as they happened, and others just kinda kept their receipts and did their entire report at the last minute on its due date (we all know that person).
The research results drove the design of the expense report app that is still being used in 2025. While UI evolves as it does, the flow and interactions of this app have held strong for more than 8 years.
Paylocity was developing on the fly to a changing economy, and a higher focus on FSA and HSA accounts, as HSA accounts were being messaged and prioritized by companies across the country.
I was pulled into this new project that was moving at breakneck speeds. The goals were clear ... bring the Paylocity usability language to a new product offering. With my experience in successfully transforming the expense reporting app, I was a perfect candidate for this offering, as health spending resembled expense reporting in many ways.
As of January 2025, this product is still being offered by Paylocity with minimal UI changes. The design and experience framework of those product has remained in tact for more than seven years.
