Contractor Pro Case Study
Executive Summary
Contractor Pro is a new software that aims to help business owners and subcontractors buy back their time. The software acts as a virtual secretary, managing jobs and customer requests. As part of a UX team, our goal was to create new and helpful features for a generally tech-averse user base.
Gathering Information
Starting, we performed a competitive audit. We analyzed the functionality of Contractor Pro (flows and features) and its competitors like Yardbooks and Jobber.
We then held a stakeholder interview, gathering useful information about the company as a whole and their goals for the software.
Using all of this information, we compiled it into a journey map. This helped us identify areas of opportunity. One issue we identified was the onboarding process. The software currently doesn’t have an onboarding process at all, and with the clientele being tech-averse, this could be a major improvement.
Kano analysis
3: PDF Scan, in the Kano analysis, current users expected this feature and disliked that it wasn’t there. Contractors have to deal with many documents; adding this feature will increase productivity.
4: Video Onboarding, there is currently no information about what Contractor Pro is or how it could help businesses. Adding a page that has a short informational video and some text will help build trust with customers.
5: Demo Task Tutorial, with Contractor Pros clientele being tech-averse, a tutorial would be extremely helpful. If a user doesn't know how to use the software, they are not going to use it at all.
next steps and learing
Well, I will no longer be assisting Contractor Pro. I hope they find these recommendations helpful. And I hope to see them implemented into their software soon.
Designing software for people who don’t use technology much really made me think about different ways to make it as user-friendly and intuitive as possible. This project definitely helped hone my UX skills.
methods
Competitive audit
User journey maps
Rapid prototyping
Tech Scoping
KANO analysis
Figma wireframing
Feature recommendations
new Features
Feature Ideas
AI chatbot
Job Tags
In software chat
guided tutorial
Job Progress tracker
intro page
quick note button
Then we sent out a survey to current users of Contractor Pro. The survey consisted of a select number of features. They were asked to rate each feature based on how they would feel if it were present or absent. We took this data into Figjam and graphed it on a chart where the x axis is functionality and the y axis is satisfaction.
After conducting the Kano analysis, I decided to focus on five main features to implement.
1: Jobs Tags, Finding workers for your job could be difficult, so adding the ability to search by skills for workers would increase the usability.
2: Quick Note, the stakeholders stressed the importance of writing notes quickly. That is why I recommend adding a dedicated button at the top of the screen to quickly jot down notes for a specific job.
By Connor Steffens UX design and Researcher
Journey map
We then moved into rapid prototyping. Taking the information we gathered from the prior phases, I came up with seven new features. These features aim to help users along their journey and nullify pain points.
Tech scoping
As a team, we met with a developer from Contractor Pro. He analyzed each feature and assigned story points. Story points are used to assess the feasibility of each new feature. For the current sprint they were doing, they had a budget of 10 points. This helped us choose which features to move forward with.