HelpMate, a task-based sharing economy app

Competitor Analysis

In our user research, we found that though many people had heard of Craigslist, they were reluctant to use it for job postings because they couldn't trust the sources. On the other hand, TaskRabbit has a formalized process that makes it great for professional freelancers but not necessarily your average person with some free time this weekend.

HelpMate bridges the gap by providing a platform for an older high school demographic to help individuals who may not be able to do household chores, focusing on social reputation rather than formal processes.

Working through complex user flows

With two types of users (people posting a job and people looking for a job), it was key to understand both of their unique needs to understand what kind of features would be required in our app. For example, Joy (our client) wants to make sure that the Helper will get along with her parents when she's not there. On the other hand, Jordan needs flexible hours since he's a full-time student. In both cases, they want to make sure they're working with someone who's reliable and trustworthy.

I facilitated a whiteboarding session as we worked through a typical user flow through our app, which allowed us to narrow down our MVP right away and got us thinking about key interface screens and information architecture early on. This made it easier for us to diverge and re-converge when it came to ideating, and we were able to refer back to our shelved ideas later in our process once we had our MVP down.

Wireframing

Once we knew what kind of features were needed for our app, we began to visualize the interface. Our first set of graybox wireframes were quick and dirty, focusing on the information architecture and making sure things were in the right place. Once the foundation was set, we built on the specific visuals and interactions of each screen. By having a strong foundation from the start, we avoided having to make major changes down the road.

Visual Design

As we finalized our graybox wireframes, we were also thinking about the look and feel of our app. We wanted to emphasize the sense of community, which we achieved through the use of warm colours, inclusive illustrations, and softening corners of interactive elements.

User Testing

After many iterations, we had a version of our app that we were happy with. Naturally, it was time to take it to our users and see where we went right and where we went wrong. We got a lot of great feedback, which we organized and addressed by priority levels: major, minor, and opportunities.

Find The Right Job

Our home screen started as a list of cards but we quickly realized that this was too dry and it involved a lot of scrolling. So we added in a map, with the caveat that addresses were "blurred out" for safety reasons until the client and helper were ready to accept the job. We combined our map and list view, simplifying the information on the cards for better glanceability and gave the user a couple of different ways they could use to search through tasks.

👉🏼 Try out the Interactive Prototype

Community

HelpMate encourages building personal relationships, not just hiring someone to get the job done. As such, one of the main interactions in our app is the chat function, which users are encouraged to use for everything from requesting a job to rescheduling and/or cancelling. Tasks are pinned to the top with clear call-to-actions to keep the conversation focused and provide easy access to the task details.

👉🏼 Try out the Interactive Prototype

Transparency and Reassurance

For their peace of mind, clients who can't be physically present at the task can choose to receive live updates of the task progress. A simple timeline with clear call-to-actions and states of completion makes it easy for both Helpers and Clients to stay on the same page. We were careful to choose check-in points that wouldn't interfere unnecessarily with the actual task.

👉🏼 Try out the Interactive Prototype

Flexibility and Support

HelpMate’s scheduling flexibility allows Helpers and Clients to organize an task without the rigidity of a formal job. Safeguards exist in the event of cancellation and rescheduling, with warnings at critical points to ensure that users can make the best informed decision. An "Urgent Task" system allows Clients to feel assured their job will still be completed, while an appeal process means Helpers can cancel without anxiety in the event of a true emergency.

Safety and Trust

HelpMate is a verified service that allows both Helpers and Clients to see each other’s profiles and ratings from previous tasks. This ensures that both parties are aware of the other’s behaviours and instills a sense of assurance for the completion of a task.

👉🏼 Try out the Interactive Prototype

Reflection

Designing an app with two distinct types of users was difficult at first, because it meant having to think through every single piece of functionality and interaction from two very different perspectives. When the users' goals aligned, it was smooth sailing. Yet other times, they were in direct conflict. It was certainly an exercise in learning to prioritize and assess the relative consequences versus benefits of prioritizing one thing as opposed to anther.

This was an incredibly extensive project, and there's tons of details I wasn't even able to cover in this case study so if you're interested, I welcome you to get in touch!