HomesRunner

HomesRunner is a mobile app that connects new and existing homeowners with home service provider that are fast, reliable, and affordable. It allows for homeowners to quickly get multiple bids for a home repair project.

Overview:

HomesRunner’s goal is to connect homeowners with home service provider to reduce the stress and financial burdens during significant home projects. It allows homeowners to quickly and easily find a service provider at the best and lowest price.

HomesRunner is looking to improve their customer experience with reputable service providers with multiple of bids for the same project.

I took on this project with my design team to evaluate the existing mobile app and provided a findings & recommendation report to improve the functionality of the app, identify any pain points, and clarified measurable objective with the intended outcome.

Solution:

My design team and I conducted a useability test after discovering pain points with the HomesRunner app. Together, we identified common themes that could improve the app’s navigation flow, intuitive design, and highlighted major gaps.

Key Improvements:

  • Simplify wording on app

  • Increase information architecture

  • Increase layout consistency

  • Improve app functionality

Tools:

  • Zoom

  • Figma

  • Trello

  • Google Docs

  • PowerPoint Slide

  • Recorder

Methods:

  • Generative Research

  • Affinity Diagramming

  • Heuristic Analysis

  • Usability Testing (individual and group)

  • Collecting Raw Data

  • Findings & Recommendation Report

Role:

UX Design & Researcher

Design Team:

  • Shadow Lee

  • Bao Xiong

  • Max Clement

  • Matt Berdahl

Discovering What We Know

My design team and I evaluated the mobile app and created a whiteboard where we addressed the purpose of what HomesRunner is all about as a key factor of understanding what the client’s goals and visions were. This gave me a direction of how to begin my research and how to best move forward to meet HomesRunner’s goals.

HomesRunner’s Goals:

  • Connect homeowners with home service providers

  • Empower homeowners to get the best service at the best possible price

  • Lower stress and financial burdens

  • Quickly and easily find service provider

Once I understood the intent of the mobile app, I began to identify where I wanted to focus and gain more insight through a usability test. Before doing so, I identified our proposed goals and key tasks to achieve our testing goals.

Researcher Goals:

  1. To better understand how this app can empower users from lowering stress and financial burdens during home project/repair

  2. To identify if users understands the purpose of this app

  3. To identify any pain points and if users can navigate the “core” functions of the app

a. Understand what “on demands” means

b. Understand what “bidding” means

c. Understand how to select service provider

d. Understand how to review booking history

e. Understand how to cancel a booking

Identifying Pain Points

To get ourselves familiarize with the goals of the app and our proposed goals, I downloaded HomesRunner on my phone and began building a deeper understanding of the app to find opportunities for solutions. Through this, I was able to discover what worked well and what needs to be improved. My main focus here was to do a generative research and understand the motivations and intent of HomesRunner. This allowed me to frame relevant problems that needs to be solved and gather information to move forward with testing.

Major Heuristic Violations

  • The aesthetic layout of the mobile app influenced its creditability

  • The interface overload user’s visual and cognitive understanding

  • Inconsistency navigation and user control

  • Difficulty of finding information and understanding language

Challenges

Currently, in the app, users are required to select a payment method after a service has been completed. Once the users chose their payment method, the service provider must confirm the payment before the user can continue using the app. This has become a barrier to me because it prevented me from proceeding with my research; therefore, to work around this, I had to create two accounts – a user and a service provider.

This then allowed me to test the app from both perspective of a user and a service provider to further my research on different features. However, this also meant that I had to manage bids, communication, and confirming payments during usability testing.

Preparing for the usability testing, my team and I decided to take turn acting as the service provider to simulate a smooth testing experience. This allowed us to address any issues or confusion that may arise. The payment selection and confirmation process are an important aspect of the app’s functionality and will need careful consideration during future development.

Usability Testing

After discovering the HomesRunner’s strengths and pain points, my design team and I gather and discussed what we learned about the mobile app and began preparing for usability testing, where we tested a total of 9 participants through a Think Aloud Protocol. Each team, individually tested 1-2 participant on their own and then we ran a group usability testing with a total of 4 participants where we had a moderator, note taker, tech support, and observer. Each testing session ran for 30 minutes. Through this, we were able to identified user’s first impressions, observe their interactions, and listen to their concerns.

It was important to recruit participants who has been a homeowner or have previous experience with home service providers.

Script

Our script focused on:

  • Introductory

  • User Background Questions

  • First Impressions

  • Scenarios with Tasks

  • Finals Thoughts and Questions

  • Managers of old Apartment Buildings

  • Homeowner Association

Primary Users for HomesRunner are:

  • New Homeowners

  • Existing Homeowners

Usability testing was conducted via Zoom and Screensharing

My design team and I kept our research finding through Trello to sort and organize the data that was found through each testing.

Raw Data

Color notecards were used for different participants

Once the testing was completed, the insights were gathered and synthesized in a Findings & Recommendation report where I included major key findings, highlighted and annotated changes that needs to be made to align with HomesRunner’s goals and vision with creating a more intuitive design that will improve customer’s experience.

Discoveries:

  • Fast and responsive loading time was a key characteristic to the app

  • The home page was clean, simple, and inviting

  • Finding the booking history had clear navigation and understanding

  • Font sizing and alignment made it readable to all users

What worked Well:

  • Participants were able to identify it was a mobile app for home services

  • Participants liked the idea behind the app but found language difficult to understand

  • There was not enough information on service provider & pricing

  • There was a lack of consistent flow and navigation throughout

  • Layout and organization was simple but lacked information architecture

  • Navigation worked differently on IOS vs Android

Key Findings

Home Page Layout

RECOMMENDATIONS

The homepage is the first introductory to users when opening the mobile app. It gives the the idea of what HomesRunner is all about, what matters to them, and how it is beneficial to the users. Reformatting the hierarchy of the layout will giving a welcoming invitation and communicate clearly what users are searching for and what they are looking at. Visual content and scalable text makes it accessible to all users.

 
I have created two different Home Page layout based on the findings I found in my usability testing

Booking Services

RECOMMENDATIONS

9/9 participants found the word choice when booking a service was confusing. It is important to ensure language comes across understanding to all users and having tool tips to clarify any unsure informations. There was also some lack of control in the navigations with requesting a bid and accepting a service provider, by improving these flow, it will increase customer experience and their likeliness to continue to use the app.

 
Changing word choice to clearly communicate next steps 
Allowing users to be in control and have tool tips to fall back on
 
The current flow with choosing a “On Demand” provider makes users feel uneasy because any service provider is able to accept their request with no further information on who the provider is 
Allowing user to view a service provider information and requesting a consultation will ease the nerves of feeling uncomfortable with getting a home repair done
 
This is the current flow with “Choose Provider”, the map feature is inconsistent with IOS and Android users and the color contract with the the arrow and map makes it difficult for users to find
 
Similar with the recommendation from the “On demand”, allowing users to view a list of service provider before committing to one will reassure their safety and concerns

Key Takeaway

Through the usability testing, it allowed me to gauge through the importance of how users are interacting with the HomesRunner mobile app where I was able to identify the changes that needs to be made. It is important to make sure the mobile app is easy to navigate, and tasks can be completed with an ease. Users will leave if it is not consistent and can potentially go to a competitor’s site instead.

Word choice can lead to misunderstanding and can be unclear to users. To increase the clarity of the intent with applications such as HomesRunner, it is important to use words that can connect with users with as little confusion as possible.

Next Steps:

Going forward, I recommend for HomesRunner to prioritize understanding users’ preferences for the navigation flow and revise the language that is currently used to ensure clear communication of its intent. Gathering additional information on service providers will also enhance HomesRunner creditability. Back tracking to the payment process, I would also recommend considering implementing further improvements here.