At a glance
Redesign a leave management platform around a simpler user journey and fewer backend queries, for managers and employees, on desktop and mobile.
- My role
- Sole product designer, end to end, with product and engineering
- What I did
- Journey optimisation, dashboard UX, desktop and mobile UI, new components
- Surfaces
- Desktop and mobile
- Context
- Enterprise internal tool, launched in December 2024
how I did it
Mapped the old system
Fourteen links, with separate pages to apply and to check a status.
Put employees on one page
Balance, history, holidays and one form for every request.
Gave managers one view
Approvals, stats and a team calendar you can approve from.
Built new components
Made for this project, then added to the team’s design system.
Everyday tasks. A clearer path.
Leave requests, balances and approvals are routine work. The redesign gives each task one clear home.
- menu links
- 14 → 5
- apply and status pages
- 6 → 3
- pages to plan a leave
- 3 → 1
- TogetherAn employee’s leave information on one page, not scattered across screens.
- Ahead of timeHolidays and missed swipes are flagged before they become a problem.
- ConsistentDesktop and mobile share one interface vocabulary.
Where it started.
The old system worked, but every task lived on its own page. These screens are mock-ups: the real ones are internal, so names, numbers and branding are made up.
fourteen links, one page each
apply here, check the status somewhere else
a missed swipe? type the dates yourself
what changed, counted
14 → 5
menu links
A manager’s sidebar had fourteen links. The new app has five tabs.
6 → 3
apply and status pages
Leave, night shift and weekend allowance each had an entry page and a status page. Now each is one tab, where you apply and track.
3 → 1
pages to plan a leave
Balance, holidays and past leave lived on three pages. My Leaves shows them together.
Typed → picked
missed-swipe dates
Fixing a missed swipe meant typing the dates. Now you pick from the days that were missed.
Counted from the old and new screens: each link or page counts once. These are design counts, not usage data.
Launch.
When it went live, a welcome tour introduced what was new. Leaders wrote to the team after trying it.
what leaders wrote
“The new interface is super awesome. … Refreshing look and highly improved on usability. I am sure employees would love it.”
“Congratulations great efforts! I had an opportunity to explore the tool this morning.”
One page for everything an employee needs.
My Leaves brings together what used to take three pages. Select a number to see what each part does.
Holidays, ahead of time
A floating notice tells employees about the next holiday before it arrives.
Missed swipes, flagged
The banner lists the days with no swipe record, so none slip through.
Leave you can see
The week’s leave as a calendar: what’s approved, and what’s still pending.
Balance in view
Every leave type in one donut, beside the form that draws on it.
One form for every request
Leave, half days and missed-swipe fixes, added to a list and sent together.
Holidays by office
The holiday list for the chosen office, right beside the dates.
Fix a missed swipe.
A day without a swipe record used to mean typing dates into a form, or emailing support. Try the new way.
Choose “No swipe regularisation” to fix a missed day.
- 1
The banner lists every missed day
No more finding out from an email at the end of the month.
- 2
The date list only shows those days
Choose “No swipe regularisation”, and the dates come from the banner: nothing to type, nothing to get wrong.
- 3
Fewer emails to the support team
Fixing it in the app cut down the email queries that used to reach the backend team.
Plan the year, not just the day.
Every day of the year on one grid: days in the office, leave taken, requests pending and holidays coming up, so employees can plan their leave.
One dashboard for a manager’s day.
Approvals, the numbers that need attention, and the whole team’s week, on one page. Select a number to see what each part does.
Requests, with context
Type, dates, days and reason on each row, with a comment box and approve or reject.
Two numbers that need attention
Missed swipes of five days or more, and who’s on leave today.
Decide in bulk
Approve all or reject all, for a queue of routine requests.
Balance before deciding
Choose a team member to see what they have left.
The team’s month
Leave against headcount, and the birthdays and work anniversaries coming up.
Everyone’s week in one view
The team calendar shows approved, pending and rejected leave, and missed swipes.
Approve from the calendar.
Managers can approve or reject leave right on the team calendar, while they can see who else is away that week.
Team calendar Week of 17 June 2024
ApprovedPendingRejectedNo swipe
tap a pending bar ↓
- Ananya Raghavan
- Rohan Mehta
- Ishita Kapoor
- Farhan Siddiqui
- Lakshmi PrasadNo swipe
- Dev Narayan
- Neha Joshi
- Joseph Thomas
On the phone, clear the queue.
My mobile approvals card, rebuilt so you can use it. Tick requests, approve or reject them, and watch the counts and statuses follow.
Manager Dashboard
Approvals
- Pending
- Pending
- Pending
- Pending
- 1
Nothing selected, everything counted
With no boxes ticked, Approve and Reject act on the whole queue, and the buttons say so: “Approve (4)”.
- 2
Tick to narrow it down
Select requests and the counts follow your selection.
- 3
Status you can read at a glance
Each request carries its state as a coloured chip, so a manager sees what’s done without opening anything.
go on, clear the queue →
Rebuilt from my mobile manager dashboard, with made-up names and dates.
The same pattern, everywhere.
Weekend allowance and night shift follow the same idea: apply and track in one tab, and only show what can actually be claimed.
New components, added to the system.
I worked within the existing design system, and made new components where the redesign needed them. The team later added them to the design system, so other tools can use them too.
leave requests: table, compact, mobile and modal
The same content, shaped for each context.
no-swipe alert, date picker, monthly stats
Made for this project, then added to the system.
calendar, cards and the celebration card
The pieces that make the team’s month visible.
What I’d measure next.
The counts above come from the designs. The next step is to measure the new flows with the people who use them every day, as one leader suggested: a survey of employees and managers.
