COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

We analyzed some of the competitors in the home services industry to understand why users are using (or not using) on-demand home services apps/websites. We also uncovered the strength, weakness and opportunities of the direct competitors: TaskRabbit, Handy, HomeAdvisor, Takl and Houzz. In addition, we performed a competitive analysis on UpWork and Thumbtack which are the indirect competitors.

Here are some of the features we will consider when making our design decisions:

Understanding these current market trends allows us to be prepared to ask about frustrations that millennial users may have, specifically with what is currently available to find reliable and affordable contractors for the job. We can move forward in our user interviews to identify those frustrations.

USER RESEARCH

We interviewed 9 participants, who live in the metropolitan area, between 23 and 39 years old to discover what home services participants want or need the most and gain insight into users’ behavior on using on-demand or home service apps.

Defining Our Product

The Problem

Millennial metropolitan renters need to find reliable and trustworthy contractors with a simple digital platform to easily address researching and hiring that will save time in their everyday busy lives.

Design Principle

User Scenario

Designing Solutions

Concepts

Now that we focused on our problem and defined our users, we were ready to start developing solutions. By ideating through 6-8-5s, we highlighted what features were most important to address. With our design principles in mind, we settle on the three approach ideas. Our main objective was to save the user’s time when finding reliable and affordable home service contractors.

Analysis

For the next phase, we conducted concept testing to understand if the concepts made sense to the participants and if the concepts solve the problem. From the notes in concept testings, we created a 2*2 to organize the top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats on each concept.

Solving the Problem

Mid-Fi Wireframes

I volunteered to work on the onboarding screens and focused on evolving the design for booking and searching screens from Concept B. I also developed a preliminary style guide and design system for the rest of my team to use. Since we are working remotely, it was very helpful to keep the design and style consistent.

We conducted 6 user testings on our prototype mid-fidelity in Figma. We gave participants four different task scenarios to see how users would complete. We also asked few follow up questions to gain deeper understanding through combining both qualitative and quantitative information.

Were users able to sign up and understand the concept of this app?

After going through the signup/onboarding process, all participants understood that the concept of the app revolved around hiring home service contractors based on your personal schedule and availability.

Was it easy for users to search for a contractor and book a cleaning service quickly?

Overall, the general flow was received well. Participants felt that the searching and booking process was quick and easy. They also think that all requisite information for hiring was made available.

Were users able to rebook a service within the app?

Users completed the rebooking task flow error-free. They like the rebooking idea since they would trust the contractor more if they have gotten good service(s) from that contractor before.

Did users know where to purchase a 3 hour package deal?

Most of the participants completed the task with difficulty. They mentioned having trouble with understanding the payment options and the task was what made the task difficult.

Next Steps

Given our short time frame and outbreak of COVID-19, I’m proud of what our team was able to achieve. We uncovered great insights by interviewing users with both home service issues related questions and one-demand service app experiences. We also designed a very interesting and unique solution. If we had more time to explore, I planned to continue the iterative cycle of testing and updating the prototype.

Homeowners insights

We weren’t able to gain insight into homeowner's needs and goals. I would like to continue further testing on millennial homeowners to create a product that accommodates all types of users.

Payment/ subscription system

The verbiage for purchase options should be easier for users to understand. We also need more research on how to set and measure prices for different types of services.

On to the Next Challenge

Through this project, I gained confidence in my process as a UX designer. I feel comfortable creating different research artifacts, presenting to a variety of audiences, designing collaboratively with my team, and applying my goal-oriented mindset to stakeholder meetings.

In addition to doing what I love, I picked up valuable skills in this project:

• I learned how to coordinate and conduct remote interviews, concept tests, and usability tests through Zoom and Google Hangout. For the last 2 weeks of our project, we had to conduct usability testing remotely due to the outbreak of COVID-19. I utilized Zoom and Figma to conduct the tests smoothly.

• I learned the value of approaching strangers and using my professional network to source users. When we struggled to recruit users for research, we ended up approaching people in the common areas of our Flatiron School campus. We had quite a lot of success with this, I learned most people are pretty eager to talk about their experiences and feel like they’re contributing. For nonprofit users I reached out to my network of colleagues from my past work in the industry.