Contractor Pro
Designing & Prioritizing New Features
ContractorPro, the flagship product of Logicel Solutions, is designed to help small and medium-sized trades businesses manage their jobs and contractors more easily.
MY ROLE
UX Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Deliverables:
Features Recommendation Report
METHODS
Competitive Analysis | Stakeholder Interview | Tech Scoping | Kano Analysis | High-Fidelity Prototyping
Project Background
Key Findings
The landing page was set up in a way that caused significant challenges in user onboarding and engagement, particularly for the target user group.
This learning curve reduced the likelihood that users would abandon their current organization system and convert to full-time Contractor Pro clients.
By prioritizing this key pain point in the user journey, a guided walkthrough tutorial and a chat system were identified as the key areas to enhance user engagement.
Solution
I developed 7 low-fidelity key feature ideas that were brought into a tech scoping meeting to determine which features should be prioritized in their development roadmap.
After the tech scoping meeting and determining their next sprint would have 10 story points worth of work, I prioritized two main features to be implemented in their next sprint.
Guided walkthrough tutorial
Group chat functionality with the project team and direct messaging to the owner within the platform.
We evaluated the user experience of Contractor Pro for contractors and business owners. Our goal was to enhance ContractorPro, focusing on the user experience for contractors by implementing changes that could make the onboarding process smooth and job management intuitive. The purpose was to increase user retention and conversion from contractors to business owner clients.
Contractor Pro serves as an affordable full-time assistant that manages all of the administrative business needs as well as organizes job and project management. Despite its initial learning curve for its target user group, it can be a powerful tool that can reduce the mental load and stress of its users.
The Problem
How can we improve the initial onboarding and user flow within Contractor Pro to maximize the potential of prospective users to become long-term clients?
If contractors won’t use the app, the product won’t be viable. Contractors have to be willing to go to the website and perform tasks and update the job information with what the business owner needs.
ContractorPro faced challenges in user onboarding and engagement. Contractors, either not very tech-savvy or tech-averse, find it hard to navigate and use the app effectively. The absence of an integrated communication system and lack of tutorials made the learning curve steep and frustrating. We needed to make the experience more intuitive and user-friendly in order to help Contractor Pro expand their user group.
Contractor Pro landing page from a computer screen (left) and a mobile device (right). The landing page for a new user is lacking any direction, instruction, or clarity. This leads to a confusing and frustrating onboarding experience.
Understanding the Users
User Journey Mapping:
“The last thing I would want to do after a 14 hour day is sit down at my computer and organize all of the information into the correct place on a website.”
In order to get a better understanding of the user experience, I broke down the various touch points that a user goes through with Contractor Pro. Mapping the current user journey (below, left) revealed significant pain points during onboarding and job completion phases. Users struggled to understand and utilize the app’s functionalities. Visualizing these issues helped me identify opportunity areas for improvement moving forward with a solution.
I plotted a future prediction of a user journey (below, right) after implementing the recommended features to be prioritized during the next development sprint. By addressing these two major pain point phases, a user will feel more satisfied and me more likely to continue using Contractor Pro in their work.
Current
Current user journey map. The main paint points are during the onboarding and completing a job phase.
Future
Future user journey map. The main paint points are addressed and result in an improved user experience.
Our primary user group was contractors added to the network by business owners. These contractors need straightforward management tools and have little patience for learning new technology tools. Many are tech-averse or have limited technical experience but excel in their work and have a passion for the trades.. My challenge was to design solutions that catered to their needs and desires.
Typically, contractors manage their job schedule through various means, which has worked well for them throughout their career, but causes more mental stress. They have information stored on voicemails, texts, emails, sticky notes, mental notes, and within their photo reel. Because of the scattered organization, it can be difficult for contractors to quickly find the information they need to move forward on projects efficiently.
The Findings
Competitive Analysis:
Competitive analysis with platforms that provide a similar business management service to the trades industry.
Stakeholder Interview:
Kano Analysis:
We performed extensive research and compiled all of our findings in order to come up with a best set of feature recommendations for Contractor Pro. These insights highlighted primary pain points by analyzing the competitive market, learning more from the stakeholders, and getting insight into how the users perceived the proposed features.
As a team, we started by looking at competitors in the industry to understand what they were doing well and where they fell short. This analysis helped me answer questions such as:
What features were common across all competitors, but maybe Contractor Pro was missing?
Is there any value to the users in adding these features to Contractor Pro?
What are the industry standard features that are included in products marketing towards the trades industry?
We conducted a monitored stakeholder interview in order to build empathy and trust with our client. It helped us get a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the product, how the product is ideally used, and the vision/long term goals for the product from the stakeholder’s perspective. They stressed the need for an easier-to-use app and better communication features.
“We want to help users buy back their time and expand their businesses.”
After a tech scoping meeting with their head developer, we conducted a Kano analysis with 10 of our team’s feature cards in order to prioritize features based on their impact on user satisfaction. This helped us gain insight into which features would be considered must-have or attractive to the target user group in order to prioritize which features should be implemented in their next development sprint.
KANO Analysis from a subset of 10 features presented to 15 users through a survey. Participants rated the desirability of features being present and absent, and answered on a scale of 1-7 how important each feature was to them in their user experience. Features are categorized under “attractive”, “indifferent”, “performance”, or “must-be”.
Solution
Tech Scoping Meeting:
Key Features:
Annotated, High-Fidelity Wireframes:
Introducing the job details page and encouraging the users to accept the demo job to continue the tutorial.
Guided Walkthrough Tutorial (8 points):
Interactive, step-by-step tutorial that covers all major functionalities in the app.
My design choices help minimize the front-end development work so it can be implemented in the bounds of their current hosting platform and skillset.
The walkthrough is intuitive and easy to follow, catering to the primary user group’s needs.
This reduces the learning curve for new users and improves user engagement with the platform.
Team and Owner Chat (2 points)
A chat system for direct communication with owners and team members.
Ensures seamless information flow, collaboration, and organization.
Helps to keep all project information stored in one place.
I created high-fidelity prototypes and delivered a features recommendation report to the stakeholders. My report included annotations to help the stake holders understand the rationale behind my design choices. I focused my designs to stay within their current design systems, and made sure they were clean, simple, and intuitive for the primary users.
The further built out wireframes, explaining to the user how to navigate the job details page, and what each section can be used for within the platform.
By implementing these features in the next developmental sprint Contractor Pro will address user pain points and encourage long-term use of their app. These solutions can help expand their network and convert contractors into business owners within their platform.
The landing page and accepting a broadcasted demo job.
Conclusion:
We met with the lead developer from Contractor Pro to learn about what goes into the development of an app like this. The developer went though and rated each feature that the team created based on a story point system for their next sprint. We were given a developmental budget of 10 story points to work with, which helped me prioritize which features should be focused on in the immediate future.
Based on our research, I developed two recommended features within the 10 point budget to implement that would address the identified pain points and enhance the user experience. The focus was on making the app more intuitive and improving communication between contractors and business owners.
Next Steps
Enhance the prototypes further by making them interactive within Figma.
Conduct usability testing on the prototypes with a broader user base. Using the gathered feedback, continue to iterate on the design and identify further improvements that can better need user needs.
Built out more high-fidelity annotated prototypes for the client to continue to implement in later sprints.
Key Learnings & Challenges
Creating a user-centric design is crucial for the success of a new product. Without long-term users, there is no viability for a software product.
Communicating with stakeholders helped to ensure that the project stayed aligned with stakeholder goals. It also helped to build empathy and trust in the stakeholder-UX team relationship.
Balancing the developmental constraints with proposed features proved to be a challenge because Contractor Pro is a fairly new product and there were many identified areas of improvement.