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The client, a market leader in plumbing solutions for industry professionals, aims to expand their reach to end customers, specifically housewives, by creating an MVP of a marketplace platform that lists all their partners.
The website must balance providing simplified, relatable content for housewives while also attracting professional contractors, ensuring both user groups find the platform valuable and user-friendly.
Through market and user research, including competitive benchmarking, user interviews, and usability testing, we’ll ensure the platform caters effectively to the specific needs of both housewives and contractors, aligning with best practices in similar business approaches.
As a UX designer, I led competitive benchmarking and user research, analyzing data to inform design decisions and ensuring the platform met the needs of both user groups. I collaborated closely with the project manager, business owner, and in-house graphic design team to refine the UI aspects.
Marketplace platforms tend to have a similar structure across different industries, particularly in how they present listing results and product pages (in our case, profile pages).
When it comes to two-sided marketplace platforms, there’s usually a clear visual distinction between the two target audiences, as I found through competitive benchmarking.
I analyzed four similar listing websites to learn more about the industry and to understand how they address the challenge of managing a two-sided marketplace platform catering to two distinct target audiences.
For each side, I focused on the primary use case respectively, aligning with my client’s business goal:
I chose to conduct usability testing sessions because they offer a comprehensive approach to gather firsthand experience with potential users and insights. This serves as a solid basis for making informed design decisions in subsequent stages.
Although I find it crucial to conduct usability testing sessions with representatives of the target audience, a significant discrepancy arose on the customer-facing side:
I outlined the risks to my client, and we agreed that despite challenges, valuable insights on website structure and usability can be drawn from the sessions. We concluded that these insights could guide the development of an MVP, with refinements planned for later iterations.
On the contractor-facing side, the client supplied of 3 industry professionals who had previous experience with similar services. This provided valuable and specific insights into the expectations and user experience when signing up for such a website.
To process my notes, delve into the core of my findings, and organize the qualitative data, I decided to use an affinity diagram.
The consumer-facing usability testing footage provided valuable insights into how users approach solving plumbing-related issues, emphasizing the importance of quick task engagement, user feedback on questionnaires, and the significance of elements like reviews and certifications on business pages for user engagement and contact.
Analyzing the footage provided insights into how users approached finding a solution for plumbing-related issues. The journey could be divided into five steps:
The contractor-facing analysis revealed that the platform itself plays a minimal role, as users typically conduct research and seek advice from peers before visiting the website. Marketing efforts before website arrival are therefore crucial.
Once users decide to invest and visit the site, their preferred process is straightforward: they prioritize signing up quickly, whether through a contact form or a phone call.
However, users expressed a need for a distinct platform appearance from the customer-facing site to avoid confusion during the sign-up process.
I created a customer journey map to visually outline the main steps of the costumer user journey. The analysis revealed crucial areas for enhancement, including improving the home page layout to facilitate contractor search, simplifying the questionnaire process to make it optional, adding additional filtering and sorting options on the listing page, and highlighting key information on the business page. Addressing these aspects can greatly improve user satisfaction and streamline the process of finding a suitable professional for plumbing-related issues.
The contractor-facing customer journey map outlines the decision-making process involved in joining a business directory before users arrive at the website. Users typically conduct external research beforehand and often go straight to the sign-up section upon arrival. Clear call-to-action buttons are a positive aspect, while challenges include unclear wording and limitations in modifying or deleting their own listing. Users expect a clear separation between business and consumer sections, as well as the ability to select multiple offered services.
Although we had a clear understanding of the overall user journey, I concluded that a comprehensive flow diagram and interaction design for either of the journeys cannot be finalized at this stage due to the fact that several aspects of the business model remained unclear:
Working together with the client’s in-house graphic design team and in collaboration with their business needs and expertise, we developed a logo and a colour palette. Based on the conclusions from the previous step, the client asked me to design the following four pages:
I used the colour palette and annotated the designs accordingly. I prepared two concepts for the client to choose from, and once they were satisfied, I handed over the final wrieframe with annotations during a meeting with the newly employed developers.
The project began with great potential but did not result in a final product ready for use.
The fundamental aspects of the business case were unclear, and it only became apparent to the client that these needed to be defined when we reached the design stage. At that point, it was evident that the basic steps necessary to create the actual use case for the website were missing, and there wasn’t enough information to develop even an MVP.
However, the experience was valuable as it allowed me to enhance my UX design skills and prompted the client to consider essential elements for defining their business model and creating an MVP for the project.
