StudBud
Project: Student Design Challenge
Action: UX researcher, Product Strategy
Deliverables: Domain Research, Competitive Analysis, User Interview, Insights User Persona, Journey Map, Wireframes
Tools: Sketch, Miro, Figma, Otter.ai
Project: 4 Sprints
Prompt
The home service industry is a billion-dollar market. Our stakeholder was interested in taking advantage of this trend by creating a digital product catered towards first time millennial homeowners looking for reliable home service professionals.
The stakeholder stressed that the product needs to provide both the homeowner/renter and the contractors with value, simplicity, trust and transparency.
Our Approach
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A thorough focus on the needs, pain points, and behaviors of first time millennial home buyers.
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Assess and map the full end-to-end customer journey of the home repairs process
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Define product strategy and and mapping starting from initial research to delivering final MVP in 4 sprints.
Surveying the Competition
In the very competitive landscape of online on-demand home improvement, managing to find market differentiation was easier than initially thought. The home-services industry is infamous for its lack of trust and transparency and has created a long-term social stigma that has put both the customer and the professional at odds. Solutions offering word-of-mouth referrals from platforms like AngiesList and Yelp! have been effective but have made customers wary due to the onslaught of fake ratings and reviews.
Learning About Our Target Audience
From a strategic standpoint, getting useful qualitative insights into the behavioral and attitudinal tendencies of millennials would inform the questions we would ask our target users. We wanted to do the following:
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Uncover pain points
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Test assumptions
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Understand how users evaluate contractors
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Identify what is missing
Research: User Interviews & Contextual Inquiry
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Three subject matter experts; a realtor, an HVAC technician, and an interior designer.
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Eight first-time millennial homeowners with varying levels of income
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Three contextual inquiry sessions to gather more behavioral insights.
Key Insights
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Contractors who act with integrity, transparency, and trustworthiness get the job but are rare to find.
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Texting is the preferred mode of communication between the buyer and seller.
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State-of-the-art payment solutions benefit a wide range of customer segments.
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When researching services, users will usually go with word-of-mouth recommendations from peers
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3/3 Contextual Inquiry participants went directly through Google when prompted with an emergency
Building Empathy
To help guide the team, we developed a user persona who best represented our target audience. Mapping out Alexis' goals and pain-points helped the team make data-informed design decisions.
Framing the Problem
"Technologically and socially connected millennial homeowners need a digital platform that connects them to an affordable and reliable network of contractors because the current process of finding and vetting quality professionals typically leads to the loss of time and money when things do not go as planned."
Divergent Concepts
Social Media Curation
A social platform for users to hire contractors they follow. Contractors can gain a following, curate their work, and learn about potential clients.
On-Demand Model
An on-demand feature, allowing users to schedule handy work at a location of their choice within our trusted network of around-the-clock contractors.
Time Blocked Time Bid
This concept allows users to access a contractor’s work calendar and bid on available time slots.
Going For Innovation
The team had three diverging concepts that didn't fully address our problem. We evaluated features from all three concepts and dot voted on what should be emphasized as we move towards a converged design.
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Word of Mouth
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Dynamic Communication
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Dynamic Scheduling
StudBud: an on-demand chatbot for emergencies
Reflection
The team successfully improved the employer experience of the StudBud platform. The solution was simple, impactful, and it is a design that can easily reach across the other two sides of the platform. To prepare for launch in April, we recommend Yolobe take some steps to ensure the success of their platform.