Business Management Software for Tradespeople
Background:
An online community and education platform that helps small business leaders in the trades manage their business and employees had invested a significant amount in an interactive platform for their members, with ineffective results. Sixzero was approached to redesign and develop the platform in a much more user-centered way, and asked Curio Research to partner with them on the project to elevate the research intended to inform the new design.
Proposal:
Curio Research proposed a 2-phase process. The first phase would focus on understanding what owners and managers need and expect from the client’s systems. The second phase would involve testing high-fidelity prototypes with a new set of owners, managers, and employees to ensure the design concept resonates with the intended user base before investing in the complete design and development of the new system.
Execution:
In Phase 1, Curio Research interviewed eight business owners who were also experienced community members, as well as eight of their employees with management responsibilities. The interviews discussed the participants’:
Usage of the client’s programs and applications
Any pain points related to employee hiring, onboarding, management, training, and retention of employees
Reactions to pre-identified concepts aimed at addressing these pain points.
In Phase 2, we utilized the prototypes developed by Sixzero, based on the findings from Phase 1, to conduct eight design concept testing interviews and four asynchronous design tests. For this phase, we recruited four business owners and four managers for the interviews, and ultimately selected three employees from the four. We wanted employees to use an app to test the prototypes on their mobile devices, using a research and testing app asynchronously at their convenience.
For this concept test, we asked participants if they could correctly interpret the dashboard and data, execute and understand preidentified key actions using the interface, and envision themselves using the system regularly. We also asked if they had any recommendations to improve the design before the client invested in implementation.
Challenges:
The biggest challenge we faced during the research was with recruiting. Tradespeople are notoriously busy, and no incentive amount would entice them to join a research interview. Luckily, community members get a lot of value from its in-person services and resources, and they wanted to see the client’s online services be just as good. For Phase 1, the CEO insisted on handling participant recruitment through his assistant, which we advised against. However, we did our best to work with them to meet the participant quotas. Recruiting went slowly, which stretched the research timeline for the interviews from one week to over a month. Incentives were also mishandled due to the departure of the CEO’s assistant during the research.
We remedied these shortcomings in Phase 2 because the CEO allowed the lead researcher to handle most of the recruiting. We provided the CEO with a Google Form to collect the contact information of interested community members and business owners. We began communicating with those who responded to schedule interviews and see if any of their managers or employees would be interested. By allowing the researcher to manage the recruitment process, we reduced the interview window to one week and delivered the report promptly.
Results:
Curio Research kept the audience firmly in mind when delivering the results. The end clients were busy tech startup executives, and the SixZero team consisted of user interface designers who cared deeply about what users needed, what features worked or did not, and why. We presented research insights for both phases in a precisely structured Google Doc, allowing readers to use the outline navigation to jump between sections according to their interests.
We presented the executive summary in a table format instead of bullet points to provide designers with an at-a-glance digest of the recommendations, identifying the issue, recommending a solution, and explaining why it was likely to work based on the research. Each recommendation was linked to the corresponding specific insight in the main report in Google Docs, allowing for easy access to more information.
“The research conducted by Lauren was thorough, detailed and impactful. It's been instrumental in helping guide design and product decisions. Additionally, I deeply appreciated how invested Lauren was in the project, the outcome of her work, and client satisfaction. Can't wait for round 2!”
- Nick Foster, CEO of sixzero
Phase 1 provided the Sixzero design team and the client stakeholders with a foundational understanding of the features that owners, managers, and employees would require to adopt a minimum viable product (MVP). Not only would the MVP need to give users easy access to the client’s templates and historical documentation, it would also need to facilitate two-way communication between supervisors and employees, help owners understand their hiring needs, and maintain employee engagement by assisting staff in adopting best practices, learn new skills, understand their organizational structure, and know their potential career pathways. Mobile compatibility would also be an absolute requirement.
The research from Phase 2 compelled Sixzero to completely rethink the application's structure, making it more intuitive and simplified. It also prompted the clients to think beyond their focus on a minimum viable product and consider prioritizing a more holistic data integration on their product roadmap. This integration would provide more value to their customers and incentivize regular usage by business owners and their managers.
