PlaceMakers

The UX plan needed to demonstrate how business analysts, solution architects and a UX designer can work together during the design process, for a working group still operating in more traditional SDLC processes.

A large customer base made quantitative research a useful tool for answering key questions raised during the design process and measuring appetite for new feature ideas. Analysis of reasons for calls to customer support, time spent resolving issues, and NPS data all started to converge — giving clarity on customers’ biggest problem.

Defining the most important problem and framing it within the wider context of the digital transformation work was key to gaining alignment between stakeholders, and to the success of the project in designing an app offering that was valuable enough to customers to drive adoption.

Understanding what tradies really needed to know (and what they didn’t) was key in translating the internal order and delivery workflow into something useful but not overwhelming to users. Ensuring site managers were not overwhelmed by unnecessary notifications — especially when working across multiple work sites — was a key consideration. User interviews and contextual inquiry on work sites was used to establish what was important to tradies.

Early iteration of the Trade app prototype, designed to test tradies’ appetite and understanding of the shortlisted features.

Prototypes were tested in 1:1 moderated sessions with builders recruited from the customer database. The outcomes of these sessions informed the decisions on features to go ahead with, and further interaction design iterations. Of note, the Drive Thru feature which had been the initial concept for the Trade app was deferred in favour of Order and Delivery status, which was received extremely positively by builders and better met the Viable, Feasible, Desirable trifecta for a successful MVP.