Expertly

A responsive web app that connects customers to professionals to help with jobs around the home

Problem

To connect users with skilled workers (Experts) to help with tasks around the home. Users need to see Experts as being friendly, professional and with a track record of quality work.

Solution

Foster effective communication between user and Expert through the clarification of the task. By fully understanding the problem, Experts have a better chance of completing a job to a higher quality and with the minimum stress.

Roles

UX Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer
Content Design

Tools

Miro
Usability Hub
Adobe XD
Pen & paper
Adobe Photoshop

Project Scale

4 months

Stakeholders

CareerFoundry UX Design Course

User Research

Gathering a combination of quantitative and qualitative data helped guide this project’s user-focussed design process. Research methods and deliverables included:

Competitive analysis inc. SWOT & UX analysis
Executive summary, Business Objectives with SMART goals, Functional Requirements & Delivery Schedule
User stories
User Interviews & analysis with insights
User survey & survey data analysis
User personas
User Journey Maps
Task Analysis & User Flows
Content Audit

Research Goals

What is the User’s experience so far of having people working in their home?
What expectations do Users already have for service quality, cost and timings?
What are the most important factors in establishing trust in a brand and their workers?

Interview Insights

People ask their social network when looking for a service. Especially important when a brand is not yet known and trusted

Most people have had very few bad experiences with workers in their home. But if they had, it’s catastrophic, they won’t employ the individual again and often shun the company which provided them
People are either quite unsure about the going market rates of professional services. When asked to guess wages most estimated higher than reality for all examples
Customers tend to lean to the standard market rate for services (rather than simply the cheapest) as they feel they will get a better quality in return
Trust is vital to people employing someone in their home. As is friendliness. People judge these factors from reviews, recommendations from friends and pictures of past work. They are also drawn to employ professionals when they can see a face pic
A well-designed and professional looking website is important for everyone. Especially for a company trying to establish trust in a new brand.

User Survey

We need to incorporate user reviews into the app to help users make informed decisions when choosing an Expert

Integrating a social element is important as most users trust recommendations from friends and family, this is true for choosing an Expert as well as trusting the Expertly brand in the first place
We need to cater to frequent customers as well as those who dip in and out of the service less often
Users will be happier paying for a service through the app

Brand Trust

What factor plays the biggest role in instilling trust of a brand like Expertly for you?

Frequency rate

Roughly how long ago did you employ someone/s to work at your home?

Decision factor

What factor is most influential in choosing one professional over another?

Payment

How would you prefer to pay for a service such as painter/decorator?

The User Personas…

Through analysing the research results and organising the data using affinity mapping techniques I extracted three core Expertly user personas that reflect the demographic range in customer needs and motivations.

I am designing for:

Mark - The last minute caller
Julia - The ethical socialite
Ruth - The loyalty seeker

The User Flows

Mark, Julia and Ruth each have their own way of doing things, we see this proven later during usability testing where certain user groups prefer using the search function while others navigate through the menu structure. Some want to book an expert quickly and choose whoever is available while others want to consider their choice carefully, bookmarking and using Experts they like repeatedly.

I considered this while designing my user flows, who out of my personas was performing this task?

Mark - he wants someone asap so there's an available now option for him

Ruth - She wants to see the Expert's face and read about them, if she likes them she will want them to visit weekly so she needs this option

Julia - She wants to share a good service with people she cares about

Low-fidelity & Mid-fidelity wireframes

Select low-fidelity wireframes I made for this project and their mid-fidelity continuations. These are screens from the “searching by category” navigation flow - I was working with a mobile-first design process.

Usability Testing

I conducted usability tests with the first iteration high-fidelity prototype. The aim was to understand user’s initial impressions of the app’s aesthetic and perceptions of the app’s functionality.

Remote and in-person usability tests with 6 participants
The participants used their own phones for the tests
Participants were aged between 25 - 60
It was 50/50 female and male
It was 50/50 those who owned their home and those who rented
4 participants lived in an urban area while 2 lived in a rural area

First I asked about their feelings upon opening the app to the home screen and their perception of what it’s purpose was. I then proceed with 2 scenario tasks which were:

You want to paint your living room, find the relevant list of Experts and filter them to your preferences
Book the Expert Josie.K to paint your living room using the Expertly app

All my notes ordered by person and colour-coded for positive and negative quotes, observations and errors.

The process of affinity mapping, defining common themes and reorganising into defined groups to quantify the qualitative data

Rainbow spreadsheet which allows me to order by number of times it occurred as well as by severity rating

High-fidelity wireframes

A selection of screens at high-fidelity with colours, icons, typeface and decisions on other UI elements being implemented across the project. Here are a few changes made to the final versions as they stand:

Home screen includes onboarding illustration followed by the category menu when scrolling

Changes were made across the app to make screens more easily readable for visually impaired users by increasing contrast ratios and text size
There was 100% success rate navigating through the sub-category menu so nothing was changed except to keep it in line with the style guide
Expert list cards have been simplified since mid-fidelity and we have a clean, minimal design which shows clearly the important information to the user at a glance
Filter options include chips at the top with binary options like 'available now' or 'only female Experts' (which proved a popular feature with female user-testing participants)
Filter options also offers sliders for options such as price and a graphical display to visualise average prices has been added - a feature which users responded to positively, feeling they were better informed to get a fair deal
The Expert Bio includes a short introduction written from the Expert as well as bookmarking and a sharing options - important social factors in progressing the app's user-base
Added the section to see images of Expert’s past work, this as well as user reviews are the most important factors for instilling trust in the User to book an Expert
The booking calendar was redesigned to align more with the Google calendar which many users will be intuitively be able to use
A consultation option button is included on the calendar page - a feature requested by some users during testing, particular those above 50 years of age
Message-your-Expert screen has additional questions below the main message. These questions would adjust for each job-type. This is to help orientate both the User and Expert in what the job entails, mainly to provide a clear idea to the Expert of what to expect
Booking confirmation focuses on a positive feeling to the user for completing a booking with a confetti animation playing upon confirmation and congratulations offered
Finally a few practical info points and options are offered to keep human errors to a minimum and maintain easy communication between User and Expert

Presentation of Expertly

A video of myself introducing the booking flow using the Expertly app. To click around the app yourself follow this link to the clickable prototype Expertly App