Ashish
Ramtekkar

01 — Problem

Payroll in small organizations ran on spreadsheets and paper registers. Attendance was logged manually, salary calculation happened at month-end under time pressure, and every correction meant re-checking the whole sheet. Errors surfaced only after payslips were issued.

02 — Research

Interviewed the admin staff handling payroll and shadowed one full month-end cycle. Mapped every manual step, timed it, and logged where mistakes originated — mostly duplicate entries, missed leave adjustments, and inconsistent overtime rules.

03 — Personas

Admin (primary): needs speed, bulk actions, and confidence that numbers are correct. Manager (secondary): needs read-only visibility into team attendance. Employee (tertiary): needs to see their own attendance and payslip without asking anyone.

04 — User Flow

Login → role-based dashboard → mark or import attendance → auto-calculated salary preview → review flagged anomalies → approve → generate payslips → archive. Corrections re-enter at the review step instead of restarting the cycle.

05 — Wireframes

Low-fidelity screens for the attendance grid, salary preview, and payslip view. Explored three layouts for the attendance grid — calendar, table, and list — and tested them against the admin's mental model of a physical register.

06 — Iterations

V1 used a calendar view that broke down beyond ~20 employees. V2 moved to a dense editable table with sticky employee names and keyboard navigation. V3 added an anomaly panel surfacing missing punches and overtime outliers before approval.

07 — Final UI

A restrained admin interface: single accent colour reserved for actions and warnings, tabular numerals for all money and hour values, and a persistent summary bar showing headcount, total payable, and unresolved flags.

08 — Design Decisions

Chose an editable table over a calendar because the admin's existing register was tabular. Made approval irreversible but preview infinitely editable, so the risky action is clearly separated from the routine one. Role-based access kept the employee view read-only to avoid disputes.

09 — Outcome

Month-end payroll went from a multi-day manual exercise to a single reviewed pass, with anomalies caught before payslips were issued rather than after.

10 — Reflection

The biggest lesson was that matching an existing mental model beat a 'better' interface. If I revisited it, I would add an audit trail per edit and validate the anomaly rules with a larger organisation before generalising them.