Streamlining the HR agenda for thousands of people with Humanet

This isn’t our first time working with Humanet – in fact, we were there when the very first version of their mobile app was created back in 2021. Since then, the client has significantly expanded their ambitions, and the app began growing faster than it was originally designed for. While the initial design wasn’t bad, the app’s architecture wasn’t built to support the growing number of features being added over time.

New screens, requirements, and user scenarios kept emerging – until it no longer made sense to treat the app’s development as just an evolution. It was time for a fresh start. Together with the client, we created a new version of the Humanet mobile app – one that meets today’s user expectations, is technically ready for further growth, and stays consistent with the existing web solution.

The goal was clear – to build a simple, modern, and intuitive mobile app that helps both employees and managers handle everyday HR tasks easily and efficiently.

At the start of the project, we focused on gaining a deep understanding of the problem from the perspectives of the market, the product, and the users. We conducted a competitive analysis of similar HR applications, looking at how they approached navigation, content labeling, and role management. This helped us identify current UX trends and opportunities to simplify app navigation, even when dealing with complex content. At the same time, we analyzed Humanet’s existing information architecture, uncovering several key issues.

From these findings, we defined a set of research hypotheses and questions. We focused primarily on which features users interact with most often, how frequently they use them, and how this behavior differs between managers and employees. By combining quantitative data (surveys) with qualitative insights from user feedback, we gained a clear foundation for designing a new architecture.

In the next phase, we mapped out all existing and planned features. This comprehensive overview gave us a clear picture of the system’s scope and allowed us to design an information architecture aligned with real user scenarios.

We focused particularly on making key features easily accessible, such as attendance overviews, calendars, and requests, while ensuring a consistent experience across different user roles. Special attention was given to the manager mode, which includes extended capabilities like request approvals and team management.

To support this, we designed the navigation to scale without compromising clarity. The result is a simplified main navigation that reflects current UX trends, such as widgets and context-aware actions, while offering quick access to the most frequently used features. Throughout the process, we iterated closely with the client, continuously seeking a balance between user needs, business priorities, and technical feasibility.

From the very beginning, the brief was clear: to create a modern and intuitive mobile app that would be not only functional but also user-friendly. We approached the task as a full redesign, reworking the navigation, visual style, and user flows from the ground up.

While the design followed core mobile principles, we also had to take into account the habits of long-time clients who were used to the behavior of the existing web app. In some cases, this meant finding a balance between native mobile patterns and the familiar flows users already knew.

We created an interactive prototype that allowed us to test the logic and flow of key features before development began. The final UI design reflects a clean, clear, and functional style – exactly what everyday HR tasks require. While some interactions may have been unconventional for mobile platforms, we knew it was important for existing users that the app’s behavior remained consistent. This consistency helped us maintain user trust while also improving satisfaction with the new mobile experience.

The biggest challenge was time. The client requested delivery of the new version of the app within just one month. At the outset, most of the designs had already been approved, which allowed us to skip some of the initial decision-making phases. However, it also created significant pressure on the technical implementation. Development, design, and analysis had to run in parallel, and with a large team involved, every part had to work together like a well-coordinated orchestra.

Along the way, we tackled:

• missing edge cases that weren’t covered in the original designs,
• issues with API documentation and unclear back-end logic,
• platform-specific limitations that impacted component design and app behavior.

Despite all this, we not only delivered the app on time but also maintained a high level of quality. Thanks to careful organization, clearly defined responsibilities, and the team’s strong commitment, we achieved in weeks what would normally take several months.

Together with the client, we focused on the features that save users time daily and simplify communication between employees and managers. The result is a set of four key areas that cover the core HR agenda directly from the mobile app:

The Humanet project has shown us that even a small application is not easy when a challenging deadline and multiple teams involved come into play. It showed that parallel processes – development, design and analysis - can work if there is open and constructive communication between the teams.

The analyst played an essential role, holding the whole project together – both informationally and organisationally. We also realised that good coordination is not just a matter for large projects - on the contrary, it is even more important for smaller and faster projects.

However, the work doesn't stop after a successful launch. In cooperation with the client, we are preparing further extensions to the application – for example, the possibility of bulk approval of requests, widgets on the phone desktop or dynamic display of functions according to the type of subscription.