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Most features of this platform involved two user types - the client and the tradesperson. I broadly defined these as a mid 30s male, not so tech savvy and self employed on the tradesperson side, and the client as an early 40s female with renovating a property with their family.
The client was testing with a subset of closed beta users when I was approached. Through this they had identified several trends pain points from the users, and wanted a rethink of the platform’s key job creation workflow based on this feedback.
I ran through the existing platform workflows several times from the perspective of both user types, and identified both some low hanging fruit that might need addressing, and larger chunks of work we could look at in ideation.
With a design direction already in place, it was straightforward to begin addressing smaller low hanging fruit improvements I predicted would see positive results immediately. These would also keep the developers busy during ideation and design. Many if these pertained to obvious bugs.
I came up with a number of approaches to solving issues with the Job creation workflow. These were reviewed and voted on internally, and with a small subset of closed beta users. I proposed simplifying the workflow to contain less modals, give more glanceable information in a dashboard format, cut back on redundant UI elements (such as having two progress bars for a project). The motivation was to always make it clear to the users what the status of the project was, both from the tradesperson and client perspective.
Once a clear solution was decided upon, I went through and ensured the rest of the platform designs were aligned with the new direction. This involved updating a very large set of existing workflows in Figma to align with the newly proposed design patterns and component architecture so the developers could properly interpret the designs.
Because certain key design patterns had ben updated in the existing screens outside of the key workflows I was tasked with improving, we decided testing rounds should include this broader scope. This resulted in the creation of a large Figma prototype that could be broken out into discreet stories for testing. I set these up for testing in Maze, with a framework the client could use to test with their beta users.
The existing platform had no rigid design system in place, so I created one based on our new design approach and used this as the basis for briefing the developers on moving forward with a consistent component set. Another intention behind the design system was to prevent the occurrence of visual bugs that plagued the existing platform.
With a clear design system in place and a well furnished prototype, the handoff and sprint process with the developers went very smoothly, with an iterative review process that still continues. The app currently remains in closed beta.
I went through several rounds of design iteration based on both user and stakeholder feedback at this stage, and fed iterated feature sets into the sprints of the client's development team.
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