Use Gale App
Redesigning shift management for scalable, real-time healthcare staffing
Client
Year
2023
Industry
Healthcare Staffing
My Role
UX/UI Designer
App Design System Manager
Related Case Study
The Challenge
Gale Healthcare Solutions built the Use Gale App to help facilities quickly and compliantly fill open shifts with qualified nurses and caregivers. While the initial proof-of-concept delivered basic functionality, it couldn’t keep up with rapid growth—especially post-2020, when demand for flexible staffing surged due to COVID-19.
As the platform scaled, so did its usability challenges. Shift booking and schedule management were fragmented across multiple views, causing frustration for both healthcare professionals and facility admins. Nurses struggled to claim shifts efficiently, while administrators faced barriers in staffing coordination and compliance.
As a UX Designer, I collaborated with the UX Lead, developers, and product team to streamline core workflows, expand the design system, and introduce scalable features. My focus centered on unifying shift scheduling and calendar management—two previously disconnected experiences that were critical to user efficiency and platform performance.
Surfacing the Pain Points
We began with a heuristic evaluation of the existing app and multiple rounds of usability testing to identify where users were encountering friction. The results highlighted several key issues: clunky navigation, an unclear information and color hierarchy, and inefficient workflows for core tasks like checking availability or booking shifts.
Nurses had to toggle between multiple views to find open shifts, often missing key updates or making mistakes due to unclear UI and poorly structured availability settings. Facility managers, meanwhile, struggled to identify staff who matched their needs in real time. The result: missed shifts, lower engagement, and a system that failed to scale with user demand.
Simplifying Scheduling
To solve these pain points, we restructured the app around a unified scheduling model—introducing a consolidated calendar interface that merged shift booking and schedule management into a single, streamlined view. Users could now:
View their week or month at a glance
See booked, pending, and available shifts clearly marked
Set their availability in advance to filter results
This not only reduced toggling and decision fatigue but made the entire process feel intuitive and fast. We validated the new scheduling model through user testing with volunteer through existing healthcare professionals who use the app (via Maze) to ensure clarity and ease of use. Facilities, in turn, gained better visibility into who was available and when—improving shift targeting and fill rates.
Scaling through Design Systems
Alongside UX improvements, I helped expand the app’s design system to support consistency across new and existing components. We defined interaction patterns, color tokens, and component logic that gave developers a clearer framework to implement features efficiently—and with fewer visual or behavioral inconsistencies.
This also allowed the team to move faster on future releases, with more reusable building blocks and fewer design-to-dev handoff gaps.
The Outcome
The redesigned app improved speed, clarity, and adoption. In post-launch surveys, users highlighted smoother navigation and clearer scheduling as key improvements. Internal usability testing showed users could find and book shifts up to 30% faster compared to the previous version.
The expanded design system helped reduce implementation friction, and the new calendar experience directly addressed user frustrations—turning a fragmented workflow into a single, reliable control panel for managing work.
This project was about transforming fragmented scheduling workflows into a single, intuitive experience. By basing our decisions on direct feedback from healthcare workers and aligning improvements with platform needs, we delivered a more scalable and user-friendly tool for staffing healthcare shifts.
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