Helpboard
Company: Helpboard
Year: 2020
Position: Design Lead
The Project
My team and I worked with Helpoard to create a mobile application. Helpboard is an easy to use platform to connect local creative freelancers with people who need their services. Currently, Helpboard is a simple sign up page. But, they were interested in developing an on-demand mobile product that allows users to find, select, and book services easily online. They want to be able to create a robust website in the future.
My Role
For this project I was the Design Lead, though all designs were done as a team effort, I reviewed and insured that my team an I were staying on track to create the desired final project. I was involved in all parts of the UX design process including research, interviewing, ideation, synthesizing, and UI design.
How Can We Connect Clients with Creative Freelancers More Efficiently than the Other Apps & Services on the Market?
Who are we doing this for?
Helpboard wants to offer a solution to gig workers and the newly unemployed with an easy to use, quick app that can connect clients with the freelancers they’d like to work with.
For this project, we are focused on the client & how they hire creative freelancers online.
She’s a career coach who is busy growing her business. She prefers to be the visionary -- focusing on the big picture ideas. She’s unable to hire anyone full-time but she needs help with specific projects, so she hires freelancers on a per-project basis.
Her main challenges in hiring freelancers include:
Cost -- is a huge factor in hiring a freelancer so she wants to make sure the freelancer she hires is skilled at the job she is asking them to do.
She wants to make sure that they CARE about her project.
She finds that she’s overwhelmed with the large pool of applicants she gets for each job she posts.
C&C Analysis
A piece of our research included looking at several competitive & comparative sites to see how they addressed their user’s needs & what they offered.
Looking into these sites and apps, we uncovered common themes & industry standards regarding features, filtered searches and user flows.
Interview Findings
We spoke to 6 clients (those who hire creative freelancers) and 3 creative freelancers who find work on apps like Helpboard. They were able to give us insights into their needs & preferences.
In these interviews, we wanted to understand:
How freelancers prefer to start their working relationships with those hiring them online
How both clients & freelancers prefer to interact with each other using online apps/sites
What the challenges & pain points are for both users as well as their goals & values.
“I would prefer a good amount of communication with the freelancer before a project is started.”
Identifying the Problem:
“Chantelle, a busy entrepreneur, feels overwhelmed with the details of building her career coaching empire. She needs to find skilled, trustworthy freelancers to help her achieve her dreams. She finds this difficult because she faces time and budget constraints.”
How might we find a solution:
We considered several HOW MIGHT WE Statements:
How might we establish trust in the freelancer/client relationship early on?
How might we encourage clear and open communication throughout the process?
How might we establish clear goals and milestones throughout a project to help Chantelle stay on top of her project and with the freelancer that she has hired?
Beginning the Design Process:
We gathered all of the information from our interviewing and research to put together Mid-Fidelity wireframes.
We used a research method called card sorting, which is a tool for discovering how users interpret and categorize information, to help us structure the app. In this we ask users to group and name pieces of content on the app.
Seeing how they group these together helped us inform our navigation and overall architecture, as well as make sure each feature was findable, clear and easily accessible.
All this translated to a medium fidelity, clickable prototype which allows us to test the app quickly to see if it was usable.
Usability Testing
Once we had a prototype ready, we tested it with 5 participants. We asked them to show us how they would perform different tasks on the prototype. We evaluated quantitative data like how long it took for them to achieve each goal as well as how many clicks it took to get there.
We also gathered qualitative data which gave us insights into how they felt about the interface & how well the flow addressed each challenge they were given.
There were several key takeaways from the usability tests but we’d like to share the primary ones with you now:
They generally liked the look of the interface, they felt it & the user flow were clear & made sense.
They felt that creating a project & searching using the filters was pretty easy & straightforward.
From Mid-Fidelity to High Fidelity
We took the results from our mid fidelity usability test and applied them to our high fidelity wireframes.
We also implemented the style guide and Helpboard’s brand identity.
Finally, The Prototype
We created a High-Fidelity Prototype from our hi-fi wireframes to really make sure that our design was working properly and to show our clients what the design looked like in action.
Next Steps
Let’s talk about NEXT STEPS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Create a sense of trust. - Freelancers & clients should be securely vetted so that users feel confident that they will be working with skilled, trustworthy people when they use Helpboard.
Skills need to be verified.
Freelancers could have access to skill tests through the app.
When they have completed these tests, badges can be displayed on their profile so that clients can quickly see what skills each freelancer is proficient in.
Verification badges can also be used to identify membership level, background check clearance, and more.
Clients are able to rate and review Freelancers, but freelancers will also be able to rate their experiences with the clients they work with.
This will ensure that People who treat others poorly can be rooted out.
Helpboard members could be provided with access to various resources to help them run their small business more effectively and efficiently.
Resources like webinars with various industry experts to help them do their taxes, or promote themselves more successfully on Helpboard, or on social media channels. Maybe they could give them financial planning advice & more.
This could be an added value to Helpboard membership or could be offered on an individual event or webinar basis.
We also think it would be a huge benefit to provide freelancers with access to a group healthcare plan through Helpboard.
Since we focused mainly on the client hiring the freelancer for this sprint, it would be extremely valuable to examine and build out what freelancer’s view would be using this app.
Finally, a couple of Additional features that could be added :
A contract builder that would help inexperienced clients or freelancers build a contract.
A project milestone tracker which would help users manage projects and track deliverables.
Features like these would not only add value, they would add to the educational and helpful nature of the site, setting it apart from its competitors & building loyalty.