The problem

Develop a digital platform to help connect millennial renters and homeowners to local home service professionals.

Full brief

My Responsibilities

Though it was a team effort, there were somethings I worked independently on, or played a larger role in their execution.

• Project management

• Survey creation & data synthesis

• Journey maps (view 1, view 2)

• Wireframe kit & style guide

• DIY concept screens & prototype

• Usability plan & report

Prototype Links

• Concept prototype ⇢

• Converged prototype ⇢

Medium

• iOs App

Tools

• Whiteboard

• Miro

• Sketch

• InVision

• Zoom

• Quicktime

Contents

RESEARCH

• Competitive analysis

• Domain research

• User interviews

• Survey (view)

You know what they say about ass…u…ming

We had the suspicion that millennials were not as averse to DIY-ing or as incapable as our stakeholder believed. In our research plan, we made sure to include touchpoints for all the assumptions we identified in our brief.

Synthesis

• Problem statement

• Design principles + brainstorm

• Affinity diagrams

• Personas

• Journey mapping (view 1, view 2)

• Use cases

Dooon’t stop! Find meeeeeeeaning!

Hold on to user’s feeeeeeelin-iii-ingggs!

Yikes. I concede the fact that was a stretch of the predominantly-white-frathouse-at-2am-any-given-night variety but it will make more sense relatively soon, I promise!

Once we had a lay of the land, we defined our user’s problem. We took our insights from the research phase and made multiple affinity diagrams as a way to synthesize our research and uncover insights from our users.

Ideation

• Brainstorming

• Mind Mapping

• 6-8-5 Sketching

• Divergent concepts

• Concept prototypes (Invision)

diy her? I hardly knew her!

We grasped the problem space for our users. So what was next? The ideation process, of course!

We started ideation to work towards developing solutions for our user’s now-defined problem. We brainstormed, took the best of that and then mind mapped. Then we 6-8-5’d three distinct concepts - I was responsible for concepting the DIY section of the iOS app.

The DIY Projects screens alongside a Tools + Materials knowledge-base hoped to answer a few of our user’s frustrations:

• Though the great majority of our users had an interest in DIYing, some didn’t feel confident in trying projects because they lacked the necessary knowledge.

• Users who do attempt DIY were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of online resources (where 91% of users found DIY info). It took too long to find a relevant and reliable DIY resource.

convergence

• Mid-fi prototypes

• App map

• Usability testing

• Wireframe kit

Once we had an idea of how it would all fit together, we developed and converged our concepts into a mid-fidelity prototype to bring to our users. Because of the tight timeline, we had to skip concept testing and move straight into usability testing with an understanding that cuts would be made to our final product.

We structured our usability test to test individual concepts as well as general usability to see what worked and what didn’t (raw data table below). We found that the app #didtoomuch, leading our users to experience some confusion regarding it’s overall purpose.

you’re doing **THE Most** rn

When it comes to the convergence process, I find one of the most helpful instruments in aligning and structuring a product’s component parts is the site/app map (view here).

Another extremely valuable tactic for meaningful convergence is the creation and subsequent utilizing a team-wide wireframe kit & library. I take a significant amount of pride in the level of organization of kits I’m responsible for, such as the one below:

Iteration

• Cumulative research affinity map (below)

• Iterated problem statement

• Iterated design principles

• Iterated wireframes

To quote the irreverent N*SYNC…

Bye, bye, bye… BYE BYE! 

We came to the conclusion that a whole section of the app needed to go. Which one you ask? I revisited our initial research and pulled our key takeaways. I applied the new lens of our usability test results to our prior research by affinity mapping it all!

I uncovered there was no data to support the social and rewards area of our app besides the initial ask of the stakeholder. Don’t worry, dear viewer, the DIY pages were safe!

After our usability insights were established, we returned to the cross hairs of define and develop in our double-diamond design model and iterated our design principles, our problem statement, and our product.

Deliverables 

• Prototype (Invision)

• Mid-fi wireframes

• Next steps

• Future recommendations

We refined our prototype for intuitiveness, efficiency, and accessibility. After another the round of iteration post-usability, we reached the end of this project’s design process, had our final deliverables and future recommendations.

DIY Screen successes:

• Tutorial accessibility options (video, text + image, audio only)

• Users found the DIY search filter feature inspiring and felt encouraged to try new projects

• Users valued the option to outsource their project to a professional directly on the tutorial page.

Recommendations for iterations on the DIY screens:

• Make the level of difficulty rating less abstract and more intuitive by making it 3 levels (beginner - intermediate - advanced)

• On tutorial pages, display information directly related to tutorial (tutorial ratings, number of views, etc) rather than information on the person who made the tutorial.

• Merge Tools & Materials Knowledgebase into tutorial pages directly by including the tools a user would need, and links for more information & where to buy.

Live prototype

View on Invision

Successes & proposed iteration visualization below: