Search, review & connect to trades from your mobile

The client approached us (I worked in the software development company Electric Flamingo) in late December 2018 with their vision of a new mobile app to connect Tradies in New Zealand (and eventually, worldwide) with customers. They have worked in Trade for more than 10 years, and saw the need for a new app on the market, as the existing solutions weren't covering their needs.

The core idea of the new app was to focus on the availability of Tradies (as the market in NZ is still booming with construction and handyman work), make the app as easy to use as possible, and let tradies-managers schedule their jobs and their employees' calendars through the app.

Approaching the design of the app, together with the client we decided to stick to a native iOS and Android look, and to develop two separate designs for two platforms - that increased the design time, but in a trade-off, would cut development time and our users will be familiar with the interface from the start - as many Tradies are not very tech-savvy.

I was the sole UX designer on an Agile team comprised of 4 developers, a project manager, and a QA engineer. I was responsible for determining the overall design direction of the project while collaborating with the rest of the team on ideation.

In my design, I try to follow Human-Centered Design principles. I do believe that we can create more meaningful and successful products by using this methodology.

Here are some benefits of this approach:

• User Experience design cuts down development costs
• Every interface we create is based on a series of decisions
• Research lets us move quickly and confidently in a product direction that is proven
• We are building experiences for people who are not like us, we can never assume we understand what they need without engaging them
• If a product isn't usable, it creates obstacles for users trying to complete their goals
• "A good user experience doesn't guarantee success, but a bad one nearly always leads quickly to failure."

The first stage of starting any project is a competitive analysis from the User Experience point of view. I build a Competitive Analysis Matrix by analyzing the features of each app, market positioning, and subscriptions/charging model. Then I'm looking in-depth at AppStore/Play Store reviews for user feedback to learn about pain points and frustrations that I should avoid in design.

Through that process, I came across a lot of pain points for existing customer-tradie solutions, most of which were related to the complexity of use and frustration with feedback management by the platforms.

The client had a clear vision of what kind of product they wanted to develop, and it was a great case study for us - to mix extensive expertise in creating mobile apps and client experience in Trade to build a potential future market leader app.

Customers use the app as a database of tradies with their contact details, availability, and rating/reviews, all the details about upcoming jobs can be sorted on the phone, saving time for both. In case of landing the job, both parties can rate and leave a review for each other.

I try to build prototypes as early as possible, so after a few weeks of the start of development I was able to showcase client a fully functional prototype of the app. In my experience, the earlier we have a functioning MVP (Minimum Viable Product) or prototype - the better feedback we can get from client or user testing.

Usability testing showed that users did not realise that they could change their availability for new project settings. We decided to design the profile screen and availability settings to be more prominent in the app layout. We had to improve the search algorithm as users were expecting a Google-like search request functionality. We have also added a share button as a few users have suggested they would love to share the app with friends.

Outcome

The result is a great product with a grand mission to connect Tradies with Customers. To achieve this, we have tried to make the user journey as smooth and familiar as possible and minimize the number of actions required to connect them. It's packed with powerful planning tools for Tradies to plan their work and assign tasks to their employees or subcontractors, so they can use the app not only as a constant stream of new customers but as a daily task management tool.

This app has a lot of potential, the design is already clean and easy to use and customers can easily browse Tradies looking for the one that is available when they need it, has good reviews, and can do the job well.