WHO
WHAT
HOW
Topsheet offers a full-stack solution for entertainment production management with an emphasis on payroll. They aim to disrupt the $153B industry through prioritizing technology and mobile features in a traditionally paperwork heavy world.
Redesign the current experience to improve efficiency and make a typically cumbersome process more enjoyable so to increase client partnerships and sales.
Create an all-encompassing self-service desktop website experience highlighting project admin features and redesign the mobile app experience to allow cast/crew members to seamlessly onboard and sign their time cards to get paid efficiently and timely.
To kick off the research phase, we performed a heuristic evaluation utilizing Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Principles to identify key usability issues on existing mobile app and desktop site.
Results revealed mainly Efficiency and Learnability violations.
Conducting a competitive & comparative analysis enabled us to further learn about the Entertainment space and existing market product offerings. We were also able to better understand what were Topsheet’s strengths and where there was room for growth.
Very few companies had a full service product like Topsheet, so that is definitely an advantage to highlight and build upon.
Being a payroll company first and foremost, Topsheet needs to have custom detailed reporting as all other payroll companies had this.
There is a need for a document tracker for onboarding employees, and a desktop experience is a must.
From speaking with our stakeholders, we knew that the two major user groups are admins (users who create payroll projects, such as producers, project managers and production accountants) and cast/crew. We interviewed over 15 admins and cast/crew members, some of whom had previous experiences with Topsheet and others being completely new to the brand.
Not only did the test results confirm the usability issues we previously saw from the heuristic evaluation, but they also provided new insights and pain points:
Users didn’t like completing different tasks outside of the app
Users had a hard time understanding the verbiage
Onboarding cast/crew members is a difficult process since cast/crew didn’t know the necessary steps to get paid
Users didn’t know when a task was completed and confused on how to move forward
It’s becoming more apparent that educating users throughout the experience will be crucial for a successful Topsheet process.