Home Remedy Case Study | Ezra Schreiber

UX, Research, App Design, Branding, Figma

Home Remedy

Home Remedy is an app that is designed to help people easily find and hire trusted local professionals in their neighborhood.

Project Background

For this project I wanted to design something that would help people who are moving to a new place. I know from personal experience that moving to a new place presents many challenges and that leaves plenty of room to design something useful. My goal was find a significant pain point for people who are moving and create something that would help.

Interviews

To start the design process I interviewed five different people who had recently moved. Then I created sticky notes with all the information I gathered and grouped them by category. The goal was to hone in on a specific issue people had while moving to try and help alleviate the problem.

Personas

After deciding on an issue to try and help ease, I created a couple user personas to represent the type of user I am designing for.

Jack Doyle

University student

He is currently a student studying computer science. He just moved in to a new apartment near campus with some other students from the same university. This is his first time living away from home or the university dorms, and he has never had to be responsible for the issues that can arise in a new apartment. These issues are made even more challenging when trying to learn how to deal with these problems all this while keeping up with his large amount of schoolwork.

Robin Miller

Writer

She works as a UX writer for a large high tech company. She is about to move into a new city with her husband and two little kids. This is the first time she’s buying a place instead of renting and she is excited to be able to turn her new apartment into a home for her and her family for a long time. There are many items that need to be fixed in her new home and she knows it will be difficult to manage between work, kids, and learning her new community.

Competitor Analysis

I did some quick research on other existing products that try and help people solve this issue in order to learn what they do well and what they struggle with.

Name

Angi

Taskrabbit

Thumbtack

Strengths

Verified reviews, so you have a better idea of which reviews are more accurate according to them
Reviews are more detailed than the simple five star rating, there is an overall score but when you look at someone's profile it shows different categories and how they scored in each one
Good info on the professionals, has many useful details right up front including verifying if they are licensed
Seems to have a very large selection of professionals and many different types of professionals

Can request specific times when booking, and is relatively easy to see what times are available
Easily filter by price range and sort by rating on the search results page
Can chat with the person you hire in app to adjust the details, timing, etc.
Everyone must go through background check to be available for hire through the app

Good, clear, and brief info about person you are looking to hire, including how many times they've been hired through the app and how many years in the business
Very quick to see results, don’t need to put in any information other than location to get started
Can sort and search the reviews for each person, allows you to easily find highest/lowest ratings
Create and plan a schedule well in advance from in the app

Weaknesses

Very difficult to use, they wouldn’t let past the part where I needed to put in a phone number, no matter what I tried it didn’t work
Some of the buttons were unable to be pressed, including the drop down when typing something into the search bar
They offer the option to just search and find what you need yourself (instead of being matched) but its nearly impossible to find and not very good once you do find it
At several points it kept forgetting my zip code and made me put it in again
Doesn’t give you any info on pricing before contacting someone about a potential booking

Seems to be a bit more limited when it comes to some of the more skilled fields
Can only chat with who you hire after booking, no way to ask questions to them beforehand
No way to sort or filter the reviews
Can’t book very far in advance

No way to message within the app, redirects you to sending an email
Very limited filter and sort options, for example there is no way to sort by rating or price
When trying to hire someone you can’t choose a specific time that you are available, only a time range
No option to get matched with potential handymen like some of the other products, only search and find for yourself
It’s difficult for me to quantify, but it feels like there are fewer options here compared to some others

Competitor Analysis

I did some quick research on other existing products that try and help people solve this issue in order to learn what they do well and what they struggle with.

Competitor Name

Angi

Taskrabbit

Thumbtack

Strengths

Verified reviews, so you have a better idea of which reviews are more accurate according to them
Reviews are more detailed than the simple five star rating, there is an overall score but when you look at someone's profile it shows different categories and how they scored in each one
Good info on the professionals, has many useful details right up front including verifying if they are licensed
Seems to have a very large selection of professionals and many different types of professionals

Can request specific times when booking, and is relatively easy to see what times are available
Easily filter by price range and sort by rating on the search results page
Can chat with the person you hire in app to adjust the details, timing, etc.
Everyone must go through background check to be available for hire through the app

Good, clear, and brief info about person you are looking to hire, including how many times they've been hired through the app and how many years in the business
Very quick to see results, don’t need to put in any information other than location to get started
Can sort and search the reviews for each person, allows you to easily find highest/lowest ratings
Create and plan a schedule well in advance from in the app

Weaknesses

Very difficult to use, they wouldn’t let past the part where I needed to put in a phone number, no matter what I tried it didn’t work
Some of the buttons were unable to be pressed, including the drop down when typing something into the search bar
They offer the option to just search and find what you need yourself (instead of being matched) but its nearly impossible to find and not very good once you do find it
At several points it kept forgetting my zip code and made me put it in again
Doesn’t give you any info on pricing before contacting someone about a potential booking

Seems to be a bit more limited when it comes to some of the more skilled fields
Can only chat with who you hire after booking, no way to ask questions to them beforehand
No way to sort or filter the reviews
Can’t book very far in advance

No way to message within the app, redirects you to sending an email
Very limited filter and sort options, for example there is no way to sort by rating or price
When trying to hire someone you can’t choose a specific time that you are available, only a time range
No option to get matched with potential handymen like some of the other products, only search and find for yourself
It’s difficult for me to quantify, but it feels like there are fewer options here compared to some others

User and Task Flows

Next I set about creating user and task flows to better understand how users will interact with the product and accomplish the tasks they are trying to complete.

Lo-Fi Wireframes

Finally I began the process of actually designing the product. I started by making lo-fi wireframes to try out different ideas and get a general sense on how I wanted this to look.

Home Screen

List of Pros

Professional Profile

Request Summary

Mid-Fi Wireframes

Next I began upscaling the lo-fi wireframes into mid-fi wireframes. In this stage I was able to add more detail and design while still being able to quickly edit and adjust as needed.

Home Screen

List of Pros

Professional Profile

Request Summary

Branding

Next I worked on creating some of the branding for the app. I tried to lean into a brand aesthetic that is clean, trustworthy, and professional.

Hi-Fi Wireframes

I returned to wireframing and created more polished hi-fi designs, adding in color, images, and icons. I really enjoyed this step, getting to see it all start to come together.

Home Screen

List of Pros

Professional Profile

Request Summary

Usability Testing

After I created my hi-fi wireframes, I linked them together in a Figma prototype to begin usability testing. I gave the prototype to five different potential users to get their feedback and see what could be improved.

Iterations

The overall response from usability testing was positive, but there were some issues that needed to be addressed. I updated the wireframes to fix some of the problems that were revealed during testing.

Iteration Example #1

Users had a little bit of a hard time finding where to sign up or log in when first opening the app. To fix this I added in a a screen that pops up when first opening the app prompting the user to sign in or create an account. This is more in line with what the users expected.

Iteration Example #2

Users expressed some confusion and concern over when to expect a response from the professional. This led me to add in a small banner near the contact button that gives an estimated response time. This banner was also added on the order summary page so the user sees it again just before hitting the submit button.

Final Wireframes

Here are the final wireframes that I made for this project. It is an easy to use app that helps people easily find, schedule, and mange all the professionals they may need to help get set up in their new home.

Home Screen

List of Plumbers

Professional Profile

Time Select

Type of Repair

Additional Details

Request Summary