← Workerbird Social Tech Trust · £40k

Workerbird App

Reflective tracking for a fresh look at work. As a development from the initial WageCheck idea, I wanted to build something to support all workers. Our first product, funded by the Social Tech Trust, was a native iOS app that used reflective tracking and human-centred data insights to help people understand their working patterns and their relationship to work.

I founded Workerbird and led this project: the research, the design and the funder relationship, working with developers to build and ship it.

Start Commute screen with a play button over an illustrated city street — Commute

Start Work screen with a play button over an illustrated home workspace — Work

Start Childcare screen with a play button over illustrated hills and sun — Childcare

End Your Day screen with a sleeping birdhouse icon and moon — End your day

Swipe between activities and press play to start tracking.

The problem

Most people had little clear picture of their own working day: how long they really worked, what they were really earning per hour, or how their work was affecting their wellbeing.

The solution

Workerbird created worker-centred tracking.

Users tracked their day easily and privately, on their own terms, and received daily and weekly insights. The app helped them to:

Track how they used their time through simple, worker-centred reflective tracking
Reflect on their experience of work to understand their working patterns
Check they were being paid fairly by working out their real hourly rate
Rebalance their work life using clear, visual insights from their own data

Users could also choose to pool their data anonymously in groups, so that workers could evidence their working conditions collectively as well as make changes individually.

Tracking had to fit around a real day, so there were two ways in. Users could press play as each activity started, or fill in a timesheet afterwards. Reminders could be set for the times that suited them, and people could add their own tags for the activities that mattered to them.

The payslip screen compared the hourly wage on a payslip with the real wage once tracked hours were counted.

Timesheet view for Wednesday 26 May with Commute 7 to 8am, Work 8 to 10am and Childcare entries, and an End Your Day button — The day as a timesheet.

How it works

New users were walked through the app in six screens.

Introduction screen 1: Swipe between activities to keep track on the go

Introduction screen 2: Or add entries through the timesheet when you're done

Introduction screen 3: Track an activity important to you, choose when you want reminders, customise your own tags

Introduction screen 4: Find out your true hourly rate, showing a payslip with an hourly wage of £9.38 and a real wage of £7.37

Introduction screen 5: Get your insights, showing weekly totals for commuting, working, breaks and work travel

Introduction screen 6: Don't worry if you forget, you can easily edit times

Guiding principles for the app

We all benefit from understanding our work life.

Reflective tracking helps you step back and see your working patterns and relationship to work.

Human-centred data helps us make informed decisions.

Insights focus on what matters to you, drawn from your own data.

Making time for reflection pays off.

A few minutes each day reflecting on your work is designed to support wellbeing at work.

Endless tracking without purpose is counterproductive.

We asked users to track for just two weeks as a work health check, then return at key points in the year and across their career.

Pilot

We piloted the app with parents working from home during the final weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown, looking at how homeschooling affected their working hours. Grouping the data let us see how men and women were affected differently.

Weekly insights screen: totals for commuting, working, breaks and exercise, and Monday was when you worked the most, at 7 hours 15 minutes — Weekly insights from a user’s own data.

The app became the foundation for later work, including the Career Mapper and our redesign for gig economy riders under the Mayor's Resilience Fund.

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