Report Usability Testing HourlyRate

July 2021

Background

In 2020, many companies took hits to their business and were forced to cut costs or reevaluate how they were operating and spending to drive new efficiencies. Companies are finding that freelance workers can help build a business, and as a result, a mix of full-time and freelance staff will become commonplace. Freelance work is increasingly becoming more desirable.

In Indonesia, Sribu’s survey data recorded that 65.4 percent chose to become freelancers because freelance work allows them to have flexible times and locations. The second reason is to channel interests and talents as much as 56.7 percent, followed by generating additional income of 41.5 percent.

This freelancer job is more in demand by the millennial generation, namely the age of 21 to 30 years by 49.3% and followed by the age of 30 to 40 years by 26.5%.

In terms of average income per month, the maximum is around IDR 1 million and below with a percentage of 61.8. Meanwhile, income above IDR 10 million is a percentage of 4.6. Income in the figure of IDR 1 to IDR 3.5 million alone reaches a percentage of 18.

According to the Glints data source as of June 2020, the most sought-after freelance jobs are writers, editors, photographers and videographers, web developers, graphic designers, translators, and interpreters.

Freelancing comes with many benefits like working from wherever you please, freedom of clients, control of workload, and flexibility in your schedule. However, while freelancing often looks better from the outside, it definitely has its pitfalls! Some problems freelancers face are managing time effectively, tracking the project progress, struggling to price the freelance project, unstable income, late payment, and managing periods of low or high loads. To overcome these problems, a new app is built called HourlyRate to track the projects based on an hourly rate.

Objective

1. To know the type of users who would use HourlyRate
2. To know the behaviour of users who would use HourlyRate
3. To identify the problems encountered when using HourlyRate
4. To evaluate the effectiveness of HourlyRate

Methodology

Qualitative — In Depth Interview to understand user behaviour and the effectiveness of HourlyRate.

Criteria Sample

1. Indonesian
2. Urban citizen
3. SEC A-B
4. Men and women
5. 20–45 years old
6. Experienced in freelance graphic design, with at least 1 project in the last 6 months

Sample Users

Date of Fieldwork

17–18 July 2021

General Perception and Behaviour of Graphic Designer

Full-time Freelancer

The full-time freelancers define their occupation as one that has an unstable income but has a bigger probability to achieve higher income compared to their previous work as an employee and has flexible time.

The problems they described are avoiding project overlaps in their timeline. The priority of the projects is based on its deadline. They find it is ideal to have 5 projects every month, while on average there are running 2–3 projects in a month. Most of them manage their projects by memory or on simple notes, causing some of them to use simple tools to help keep track of the projects.

In money management, they store backup funds. Some of them monitor their finances manually while others use a separate bank account.

When setting the project price rates, all of them do it based on experience and estimations, taking into consideration its difficulty, the amount of time needed, references online, the cost needed to do the project, and price estimations by experienced peers.

During the payment stage, they do not ask for a down payment when dealing with returning clients. However, down payment for new clients is considered as it is used to avoid unpaid projects. The payment stage is flexible, keeping in mind that the flow must be adjusted to the client’s workflow.

Evaluation is done by asking for feedback or client testimonies with the expectation that they get good Word-of-Mouth marketing.

Part-time Freelancer

The part-time freelancer defines their occupation as an additional income besides their primary income, but they have less free time than usual. They find it is ideal to have 2 projects every month, while there is no guarantee of running a project in a month. If any of the projects are running together, the priority of the projects is based on its deadline. They only need simple tools to help them in managing their projects.

They do not do any special note-taking to record the results of their freelance projects.

Several part-time freelancers set project prices based on their experience and estimation, keeping in mind the difficulty of the project, the impact it has on the client’s business, the amount offered compared to their pay in their full-time job for the same amount of working time, and references online.

Payment is usually categorized based on 2 factors, the type of client (returning or new), and the scale of the project. Generally, projects with new clients will involve down payments to avoid unpaid projects, while for projects with returning clients or the nominal with relatively small, there is no need to use a down payment.

The evaluation carried out by them is a visual evaluation and making a package price for the next project from their design.

Usability Test Result

1st Scenario: On-Boarding Project

Input new project

The flow is as shown below:

All freelancers successfully created a new project, inputting the name and exploring other features without issue, except when choosing a color. Some of them did not understand the meaning of the icon and were unsure of the function of the button, resulting in the feature being skipped or being explored last. The workflow is as shown below:

Some of the freelancers initially felt confused with this workflow, suggesting that pop-up guidance for new users would be helpful.

2nd Scenario: Change Payment Status and Start the Time Tracker

Change Payment Status

The flow is as shown below:

Freelancers successfully change the state of payment from not completed to completed and tend to not run into any significant issues.

Start the Time Tracker

The flow is as shown below:

In this section as well, freelancers successfully start the time tracker at a relatively fast time and tend to not run into significant issues.

3rd Scenario: Add New Payment, Sub-Project, and Edit the Recording Time

Add New Payment and Add Sub-Project

The flow is as shown below:

Freelancers successfully added new payments and created new sub-projects in a relatively short time. In order to increase their productivity, some freelancers suggest adding a notes function and a task list equipped with a reminder feature.

Edit the Recording Time

The flow is as shown below:

Freelance successfully finds and changes recorded time settings for project link, date, and time. However, setting time is still done manually (using fast forward and rewind). All freelancers ignored the “Set Period of Time” section initially and were unsure of its purpose. This is because the button looked like an on/off button, not like a time setting.

4th Scenario: Evaluate the Monthly Income and Check the Hourly Rate Project

Evaluate the Monthly Income

The flow is as shown below:

Freelancers successfully found the “Income” page and could quickly digest the information from the chart and table.

In order to make the flow of the Income and Summary pages clearer, the freelancer suggested looking at the application Moneylover’s infographics. The chart in said application is clickable on each segment of the chart.

Check the Hourly Rate Project

The flow is as shown below:

Most of the freelancers initially had issues understanding the information from the graphs in the Income and Summary pages. Eventually, after exploring the summaries of other projects, they understood the information.

Freelancers express confusion when encountering the words “Income” on the Income page and “Payment” on the Project Summary page, causing issues when trying to distinguish the information.

Most of the freelancers felt the income summary and report details were helpful, which would be very useful and convenient to export as a spreadsheet, Google Sheet, and pdf.

Usability Test Evaluation

Page Evaluation

Page:

• On-Boarding Main Page

Works Well:

• Easy to find the “Add” button
• The green “Add” button successfully draws the user’s attention

Page:

• Input New Project

Works Well:

• Inputting project name, setting the due date (calendar button), inputting project nominal (dollar button), and saving a new project (‘Save’ button) is easy to be done and understood

Improvement:

• The color icon is confusing, causing it to be often ignored. As a result, users do not change the project color and use the default color (Tosca)

Solutions:

• Changing the icon color with an icon that is more easily understandable. The GoogleKeep website icon color can be used as a reference.

Insights:

• Using a pop-up tutorial for when users make a project for the first time.

Page:

• Main Page

Works Well:

• Payment status and recording (play button) are easy to understand.
• Successfully enters the project details page with pressing information from said project a few moments after exploring in its project’s banner

Improvement:

• The “See more details” button was originally understood as a button to enter the project information details page by a few freelancers
• The text “Due in 3 Working Days” is not clear and does not seem important

Solutions:

• Change the “See more details” into a button that goes to the project detail and adding a “Show sub-project” button
• Adding a dark background to highlight the due date information

Insights:

• Adding a calendar when clicking on the due date to be more visual
• Adding the amount and reminder feature in the payment section would be useful

Page:

• Project Detail Information

Works Well:

• As a whole, the information on this page is quite clear.

Insights:

• Add notes and task reminder feature
• Add history tracking feature on this page
• Add a color-changing feature
• Changing the payment status on the Main Page if there is a new payment

Page:

• Edit Timer

Works Well:

• Overall information easily understood

Improvement:

• The toggle button “Set period of time” caused confusion and looked similar to an on/off button

Solutions:

• Change the toggle button like the Date button in order to make it clear that there is a setting for time

Insights:

• On this page, the time tracker feature is replaced with history, but time editing is intact

Page:

• Income

Works Well:

• Information easily digested

Insights:

• Aside from displaying the percentage, it would be better if the amount of each segment is also displayed, along with a link to the project detail page. For example, the project Caricature Mr. Ben is 60% of the chart, which is 7,2 million. The text and the pie chart segment for Caricature Mr. Ben can be clicked to go to its project details page. The application MoneyLover is used as a reference.
• Export can be done as a spreadsheet, Google Sheet, and pdf.
• Detailing Total Hours in units of hours, and minutes

Page:

• Project Summary

Works Well:

• Overall information is clear

Improvement:

• Difficulty in distinguishing between information in Project Summary and Income due to the words “Payment” (Project Summary page) and “Income” (Income page) having similar meanings

Solutions:

• Changing the word “Payment” into a more straightforward one, such as “Nominal Project”

Insights:

• Export can be done into a spreadsheet, Google Sheet, and pdf
• Detailing Total Hours in units of hours, and minutes

Overall Evaluation

Critical

Main Page page

• Highlight the due date more

Project Detail Information page

• Add history tracking
• Change the display of the main page if there is a new payment

Edit Timer page

• Remove time recording because of the existence of project history

Income page

• Allow project name in the pie chart section to be clicked in order to move to the project’s summary page
• Display nominal income of a project alongside its percentage in the pie chart

Summary Project page

• Modify the wording “Payment” into “Nominal project”

High

Main Page page

• Redirect the “Show more details” link to the project details page
• Add new button to display Sub-projects

Edit Timer page

• Change the toggle button named “Set period of time” to look like the button “Date”

Medium

Input New Project page

• Change the icon of the color setting button
• Add pop-up tutorial

Project Detail Information page

• Add color settings

Income page

• Total hours detailed into hours and minutes

Summary Project page

• Total hours detailed into hours and minutes

Nice to Have

Main Page page

• Display a calendar view in the due date section
• Adding nominals and reminders to the payment section

Project Detail Information page

• Add notes dan task reminder

Income page

• Export as a spreadsheet, pdf, or Google Sheet

Summary Project page

• Export as a spreadsheet, pdf, or Google Sheet