PORCH
CORE HOMEOWNER EXPERIENCE
Porch connects homeowners with professional handymen to complete home improvement projects.
CONTEXT
For most homeowners finding a contractor for home improvement projects is a headache. They aren't familiar with the going rate for a given job, they often aren't sure what work actually needs to be done or what kind of contractor they need. Of homeowners who've hired pros in the past, many of those experiences were marked with frustration. Trust plays a big part in a homeowners decision to hire a pro. Porch bridges the knowledge and trust gap for homeowners by guiding them through the process of defining their needs and matching them with pros who are trustworthy and qualified.
THE PROCESS
• User pain points and problem definition
• Examined user data and existing personas
• Sketched user flows on the whiteboard
• Wireframes
• Mocks / UI
• Prototype using InVision
• User testing
• Hi-fi mocks / UI
• Redlines and assets
WHO USES PORCH?
Tech savvy homeowners across the United States.
KEY USER PAIN-POINTS
1. User testing and abandonment rates revealed that homeowners visiting Porch were unclear on how to get started, and not sure what service(s) Porch offers. The mental model of the UI didn't match user expectations.
2. Beyond the entry point, users were either dropping off quickly or submitting their projects prematurely due to lack of clarity. Of the users who submitted projects most of them resulted in bad leads for the professionals (ie. plumbers, handymen etc.). In order to have happy homeowners and pros it was important to make sure the projects being submitted were done so with true intent. It was also important we gather the right information from homeowners and match projects with the right pros qualified and interested in the project.
3. What happens to a "project" after it's been submitted? Pros would be notified about the lead, homeowners would get a confirmation email but beyond that there was no trace of the project or it's progress on Porch. It became clear that solving this problem would be defining for Porch in becoming a product platform rather than a website sending out leads into the ether.
Porch is facilitating a conversation between homeowners and pros.
Above is a photo of a wall exercise I lead with the design team and my project team. We began by taking inventory of all existing versions of the product, pairing down the important themes and mapping out key tasks for homeowners and pros. Since the experience is a conversation between the 2 parties we mapped the steps accordingly. Viewing the experience in terms of a conversation clarified holes in the existing product.
UI DESIGN
We began by simplifying the entry point on the home page. A single entry field with a CTA was the most straight forward UI model for Porch users. The language on this page has changed many times with the goal of simultaneously demonstrating the value proposition of the product and how to use it.
To create a focused product it was our goal to shift from a search directory model to matching homeowners with the right pro. We added a step allowing users a choice between being matched and browsing search results. After gathering enough data this step was eventually removed focusing the product on a singular goal of matching homeowners with pros.
After the homeowner submits their project they land on a summary page that lives within their Porch account. It includes the 4 pros Porch has matched them with, the status of the project and a summary of the information they entered via the guided lead form.
We began by simplifying the entry point on the home page. A single entry field with a CTA was the most straight forward UI model for Porch users. The language on this page has changed many times with the goal of simultaneously demonstrating the value proposition of the product and how to use it.
PERSONAS & SKETCHES
ABOVE: We had 4 main personas to reference when talking about our audience users. For the core homeowner experience "start a project" flow, we were particularly interested in the New Homeowner persona because out of everyone, they are most likely to be tech savvy and trust internet services enough to try Porch.
ABOVE: It was helpful to sketch up the main internal experiences a logged in user would encounter after creating a project to understand how the project page fits within the overall ecosystem.
MY ROLE AT PORCH
When I joined Porch the company was navigating the space between start-up and becoming an established company. Parts of the business had grown separately and the pieces of the product were growing in different directions as well. As a UX designer, I worked closely with a product manager, engineers and other members of the design and marketing team to chart a path for the missing pieces of a foundational experience on Porch. The majority of my time at Porch was spent working on the core homeowner experience.