Case Study: Umwuga
Project Status: Complete
Duration: 3 weeks
Team Members: Omar, Elaine, Catherine
My Role
For this project my main role was the project manager while working with my team on Umwuga. Throughout the project I kept track of our teams time by plotting out everything that we needed done and overall I was focused on time management. Aside from those responsibilities my team and I participated in all parts of research and design.
The Approach
Given as we had a 3 week sprint, we were tasked to research and redesign the mobile website for the current version of Umwuga. With this focus My team and I were confident we would be able to accomplish the scope of work within the time we had for the project.
Our assumption was simple — Trades workers provide services and jobs to millions of people every year, but lack an online community and supportive presence that opens opportunities for these workers. Tradespeople do not understand how to engage with and utilize the value of Umwuga with their current website in order to showcase their reputation and grow their network.
The initial website failed to display it’s value while using it which prevented users from continuing to use the website which was something we had confidence in being able to create and reconcile.
For design we focused on the current website as a whole and prioritized pages that needed work based on a heuristics test.
Each feature and change we implemented to the current website was changed based on the previous gathered research. Once we came up with all the features that could improve the users experience we began implementing these design’s into a new design on Figma, then continued to prototype the design for usability testing, and continued to iterate on the design.
The Challenge
When it comes to working in trade — especially as an independent, you need lots of connections and word-of-mouth referrals to earn a reputation that will provide a steady flow of opportunities. One small job here and there is not going to cut it, while trying to make ends meet, and having more connections creates a dependable workflow. Those who are trusted amongst their neighbors for being the “best landscaper in town,” who are also popular in their community’s Facebook groups, have sustained job security — but what happens when gig workers have to relocate, or those just getting their foot in the door?
From that we realized our challenge is reinstating value to Umwuga so gig worker’s can be successful wherever they choose to go.
Project Constraints
One of the biggest project during the duration of this project was the lack of information we had relating to the problems of gig workers. To make up for that lack of knowledge we structured our user interview questions to help learn about the problems gig workers go through.
Outcome
From the research we conducted we realized Self-proclaimed skills listed by trades people themselves do not offer credibility to employers who need verification.
Which made us implement features for gig workers to seek more opportunities for employer experience and skill endorsements. We also wanted to improve the usability and clarity of requesting endorsements from past local employers.
Another problem we found was workers need opportunities to gain exposure and brand their work through channels where they can talk about their experiences and workers need a dedicated space for support and networking within their specific line(s) of work.
After verifying that the problem was accurate to the target users we wanted to focus on custom group or community pages for specific gig work or people, group chats within messaging, Profile which user can add / delete notable prior work + unique value
RESEARCH PHASE
Problem Statement
While learning more about the current Umwuga process we began using our current assumptions to help us narrow down a initial problem area. We thought to ourselves users need a community-supported space to showcase their client-backed skills and reputation, while ensuring reliable and communicative employment.
Trades workers provide services and jobs to millions of people within the UK every year, but lack an online community and supportive presence that opens opportunities for these workers. Tradespeople do not understand how to engage with and utilize the value of Umwuga with their current website in order to showcase their reputation and grow their network.
How might we offer a supportive community for trade workers with transferable skills and bring credibility to their individual value?
Discover
We conducted user interviews with gig workers and current Umwuga users to drive our research phase. Below are key takeaways we believe are users biggest frustrations while searching for work.
Self-proclaimed skills listed by trades people themselves do not offer credibility to employers who need verification.
Workers need opportunities to gain exposure through channels where they can talk about their experiences.
Resumes and job profiles don’t allow workers to prove their soft skills like reliability and dedication to prospective employers.
Skills and capabilities hold little weight when they can’t be backed by referrals.
Workers need a dedicated space for support and networking within their specific line(s) of work.
Gig workers with experience, skills, and recommendations need a platform to brand their work.
Research Techniques
Initial Stakeholder Discussion — We discussed our findings with our stakeholder to ensure we agreed on the direction of the problem.
Business Model Canvas — We used this to gain clarity on what Umwuga stood for and to also gain an understanding of the Gig workers needs from the platform.
Heuristic Evaluation (of the existing website) — This method was used to address any issues while using the mobile website itself and also gave us a sense of which pages we should prioritize
Problem Scope — We made assumptions and a hypothesis so that we could go into our interviews to validate or invalidate whether we were investigating the correct problem space.
User Interviews — Interviewing trades workers helped us uncover user pains while searching for gig work.
Synthesis
For synthesizing our data from the user interviews we decided to use affinity mapping. With responses from our user interviews, we went through and recorded each interview finding onto sticky notes. We then organized these findings into categories and subcategories. We then finalized these categories into general themes. These themes were then used to create “I”-Statements, which expose the user’s pain points and needs.
Insights » Feature
Self-proclaimed skills listed by trades people themselves do not offer credibility to employers who need verification. Skills and capabilities hold little weight when they can’t be backed by referrals.
Verification of past employment
Skills endorsements from past employers
Request endorsement from past local employers
Workers need opportunities to gain exposure through channels where they can talk about their experiences. Workers need a dedicated space for support and networking within their specific line(s) of work.
Custom group or community pages for specific gig work or people
Group chats
Workers struggle to prove their soft skills that would normally show in person such as reliability and dedication, when it comes to online profiles and resumes.
Endorsements and reviews / recommendations visible on Profile
Gig workers with experience, skills, and recommendations need a platform to brand their work.
Profile which user can add or delete notable previous work and unique value
DESIGN PHASE
Design Studio
After we came to a collective agreement on what features took priority, our team participated in two rounds of Design Studio to generate ideas rapidly and visually for everyone to comprehend, including our stakeholder Nasi in this effort. We used our generated problem statement and user goals, as well as our prioritized features to aid us through what designs need to be implemented.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
After arriving at what features we believe are most essential and within the scope of our project goals within the matrix, we determined which of these features Must, Should, Could and Won’t be included in future design initiatives. We plotted the ideas of features we wanted to integrate into the website and also plotted the features that needed work. Doing this helped us map out what we could accomplish with the remaining time in the project. We thought of the features left in the Could and Won’t sections as features that could be implemented in further iterations.
Design
Once we had all of our research and feature prioritizing complete we created a responsive mobile web design based on the existing Umwuga mobile website. We created solutions which we felt aided our users in navigating and finding value within the Umwuga onboarding and website profile. To note major changes within each page of the design from the current design and the design after research synthesis.
Prototype
To prep our design to finally get in the hands of the user’s we prototyped our design files in Figma.
Usability Testing
We created a responsive mobile web design based on the recommendations of from the existing Umwuga mobile website. We created solutions which we felt would aid our users in navigating and finding value within the Umwuga onboarding and website profile. Once we completed the prototype we went into our second round of testing.
With a final round of usability testing, we collected which areas of our revised design still needed work to provide Umwuga with the best user experience. With our previous user testing and interviewing — we were able to access the overall functionality and usability of the design, but we were still lacking insight on what aspects or features within the design are most valuable to them. Which features are not reaching their value potential?
FINAL HI-FI DESIGN
With a final round of usability testing, we collected which areas of our revised design still needed work to provide Umwuga with the best user experience. With our previous user testing and interviewing — we were able to access the overall functionality and usability of the design, but we were still lacking insight on what aspects or features within the design are most valuable to them. Which features are not reaching their value potential?
Next Steps
Create a Hi-Fi design for the “Groups” page
Consider recommendations for Umwuga’s home page
Run usability test for the final redesign
Contextual inquiry on the redesign
Synthesize data from test results
Reconsider color palette & accessibility
Iterate on design
Meet with developers and implement designs
Design review on the implemented designs
