Calendar was this company’s internal tool designed to connect coworkers while creating heads down time for ICs.
Role
Product Designer
Team
2 Product Designers
1 Engineer
View prototype
Challenge
How might we consolidate status updates while still providing ample information?
Objective
Enable feature parity with Asana to minimize the impact once a migration off of Asana happens.
Discovery 🔍
What are the current pain points users are experiencing?
What are the current statuses in circulation?
The status area had some complexities as it surfaced information pertaining to teammates' statuses that included but not limited to PTO, sick, travel, on-call, etc. while also noting availability (available, sporadic, off the grid).
Where are the statuses being pulled from?
Most of the items were pulled from this company's internal tool called Status Tool. Items like "Comment" were pulled from Workday and typically at a privacy aspect to it as well.
Define ✍🏽
How might we consolidate status updates while still providing ample information?
I took a step back to look at what kind of information we provided and in what types of scenarios. The two main ones were:
To be able to digest information at a glance without having to rely on expanding the collapsable menu
To provide more information hidden behind a hover or click
A user's location and how they were classified also impacted the type of information viewed.
Meta is a mixed company where employees are able to be remote or in office. To accomodate for this change that was brought on by the pandemic, statuses included if people were working at home or in office if they were set to be an in-office employee.
I took a look at what each of these groups would desire to see based on if they were remote or not.
Design 🎨
How might we group like statuses?
Due to the nature of the statuses, there were two different ways that they could be grouped: by availability or by the type of status itself. An example would be grouping the status "Sick" regardless of the availability.
Early iterations of the popover
While designing, I looked at the statuses that were broken out based on those in office vs remote. Meta is a social company and prioritizes showing profiles as a way to build connections with team members regardless of where you are.
To utilize this concept, I separated the in office status experience to use our "face-pile" component. In discussions with team members, we felt that grouping location information together made the most sense while updating a person's location did not belong in the "all-day" area.
Redesigned calendar
1st round of layoffs = restructuring 🌩️
Due to our initial round of layoffs, resources were reallocated and projects put on hold. This project was placed on hold while I moved to a sister team. My manager at the time was the other designer on this team and she picked this project up a few months later.
Different initiatives brought this project back to life and at the forefront of items to work on. I consulted with the team working on this to go over the previous work and the reasonings behind each decision.
Final designs ✅
Phase 1 of 5+ was a success!
The final product closely followed my final designs, with one key change: the "sporadic" availability status was no longer a standalone pill but was grouped under out-of-office statuses, based on the assumption that sporadic users are more often out of office than in.
Previous experience
New experience (includes coloring of phase 2)
Takeaways 🍬
Ambiguity is an opportunity, not a roadblock.
It can feel daunting at first, but learning to navigate uncertainty is both a challenge and a growth moment. Progress begins by taking the first step—clarity often follows momentum.
Discovery drives meaningful design.
For me, the process of uncovering unknowns is as exciting as crafting the final solution. I thrive on digging deep, asking the right questions, and letting curiosity guide the direction of design.