What 15 years of building a nurse shift calendar taught us

ShiftMate started in 2011.

That means we’ve been working on a nurse shift calendar for around 15 years.

The product today looks very different from where it started.

But one thing hasn’t changed:

The best improvements usually come from small frustrations users experience every day.

Not dramatic problems.

Small ones.

“I want to know my next day off immediately.”

“I need to see who is working with me.”

“I want my shift on my Home Screen.”

“My workplace uses a shift code that isn’t D, E, or N.”

“I want to check the whole month on my tablet.”

Over time, those requests turned into features such as:

- custom shift types

- coworker schedules

- Home Screen widgets

- notes and checklists

- shift statistics

- tablet layouts

- multi-device sync

- work alarms

One of our biggest lessons has been that mature products don’t necessarily need more features.

They need less friction.

A feature that saves a nurse five seconds may not sound impressive.

But if they check their schedule several times every day, that small improvement matters.

We’re now thinking about what the next stage of ShiftMate should look like.

For makers of long-running products:

How do you decide whether the next improvement should be a new feature or simply making an existing workflow faster?