Recapturing the magic of on-demand home servicing
When HOMEE On Demand first launched, it felt magical. With a tap of a button on their phone, users could request a service provider to come to their home to hang a television or fix their leaking sink. By the start of 2019, this magic dwindled due to combining additional features that made the experience slow and complex to use.
HOMEE was the leading technology platform solving key industry challenges in an over $100 billion claims market, and I was part of the progressive project to redesign its most crucial feature, the service request experience.
Primary role: Senior Product Designer working alongside one project manager, three engineers including the head of engineering, the lead QA and the CTO of the company due to high visibility of the project to the company and its new business partners.
Time frame: Q3 2019; launched Q4 2019
Experience prior to re-design
Design for Adaptation.
In just a few short years, HOMEE went from an organization that creates digital products to connect home service providers to customers on-demand to a leading digital marketplace that transforms the way property claims are completed.
Our mission for the project was to recapture what made HOMEE so magical. The original objective was simple—tap a button, get a service provider to your home—but we weren’t trying to revert back to simpler times. Our ambitions were to create a strong base that supported a rapidly evolving business and more diverse user needs.
At a high level, our goals were to:
Make requesting a job fast and easy to use for everyone, regardless of needs.
Create a foundational system for innovating in evolving features.
Maximize the user’s known desire for an affordable, time-efficient, and convenient method of service.
These goals needed to align with the established business objectives:
Offer service to install a partner purchased product. Users seek to redeem a service through a partnered purchase, such as install a kitchen faucet.
Offer service through an insurance claim. Users order a repair to be done through their insurance claim.
Revealing the pieces through early insights from the HOMEE team.
Existing constraints meant we were not able to interview current HOMEE clients. Instead, we opted to analyze feedback from user surveys and interview service providers and members of the customer service team to identify patterns in the problems both groups were facing and the workarounds they utilized..
Confusion on load times.
An animation would play for 60 seconds and then repeat and then time out until a match was made. Users expected the match to be instant rather than the typical match time of five minutes.
Time elapsed.
Users were frustrated that the rate was based on minute rather than hour like typical jobs.
Inconsistent status updates.
Service Providers were required to pause the job when they were going to get parts for the service, which caused users to think the job wasn’t going to be completed.
Speaking with provider and app.
Users were confused on whether to communicate through the app or to the service provider.
Creating an MVP approach
It became apparent early in the process that the deadline from the business directly conflicted with the amount of work it would take for a north star redesign incorporating all of the problems revealed in early insights.
We aligned on an MVP approach focused on core functionality—bringing transparency to matching time with pros, redeeming a service, and using a service through an insurance claim.
I worked with the QA lead for a design iteration that was set up with analytics to collect quantitative feedback and ensure the feature aligned with each user type’s needs and preferences. I also worked with the customer service team to create a follow-up strategy to funnel feedback post launch.
We reframed the original problem to focus on the MVP approach: How might we expand the core functionality of the job request process while maintaining a time efficient and convenient method of home servicing?
Post-launch data revealed a decrease in negative user feedback as a result of the implemented design.
Redeeming a service and using a service through an insurance claim.
Analysis revealed the most efficient user flow was to start with the user inputting the service rather than the address of the user.
Two mid-fidelity concepts were tested with a group including partnered insurance users to reveal a clear winner.
The Redesign
In lieu of analyzing direct competitors, I opted to explore a qualitative comparison of the dominant ride-share mobile apps: Uber and Lyft. HOMEE was breaking ground in the insurance space as mobile ride-sharing apps made a significant impact in the traditional taxi service model. I set out to answer how these services capitalize on the user’s desire for an affordable, time-efficient, and convenient method of traveling.
User Observation and Interviews
I instructed four users each for Uber and Lyft to go through the task of requesting a ride. All of the users had varying degrees of experience with the apps. This information allowed me to observe and compare the user’s experience with each of the app interfaces and ease of navigation.
The process was nearly identical on both apps in terms of the interface layout and the number of steps it took to complete the task. Users had an overall positive experience with both Uber and Lyft user interfaces. None of the participants showed hesitation during the flow, asked questions, or had technical difficulties.
Comparative Analysis
Next, I conducted a comparative analysis to dive into the interfaces of both apps.
The main opportunities to incorporate into the ideation of the MVP approach:
Simplicity over minimal experience
Show progress bars of matching experience
Explore bottom sheet to display overflow menus for matching status to users
Balance professional and friendly
Implement principles like the law of proximity and the law of similarity
Bringing transparency to matching time with pros.
As part of the MVP approach, we started with the highest-impact, lowest-effort opportunity: the provider matching animation. In order to add context for the user after a job request was made, I included a bottom sheet of job request details as well as status for the matching process to be included with the original request animation.
I conducted user testing with a group of 10 non-HOMEE users of various ages and technology comfort levels. The main goal of the test was to understand when confusion and concern set in for users. Our hypothesis was that the users were concerned with speed in matching and convenience and became confused when the matching process took too long. The results showed 10 seconds was the threshold for an action to happen, and after 30 seconds, user expectations shifted to personalization and communication. This highlighted the need for a bottom sheet during the match process for users to review the details of the request while waiting.
Takeaways
Flexible information architecture: Instead of designing for the final answer, I designed a flexible system optimized for learning and optionality.
User feedback was positive since the updated menu went live at the end of 2020, and the home page allowed new partners to be easily integrated on the back-end, reducing development time by more than 80%.
The introduction of bottom sheet menus were incorporated into the design system and used in other areas of the app.
Serving 3.8 million clients better
Getting users the detail they need
Building sturdy team relationships
Managing growth and performance
Making agile work more human-centered