CityClap

About the app

CityClap is an app/web (similar to Urban Company) based company that provides home services like - beauty treatments, haircut, home cleaning, plumbing, handymen for repair, etc. These services are booked right from the comfort of one's home and skilled technicians are sent over for the job by the company.

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Note that the name and logo are used only for educational purposes and will not be used for commercial purposes.

Problem Statement

The home services industry has been hit by the pandemic. People are afraid to invite strangers into their homes. CityClap, a home services app has seen a fall in their bookings. CityClap wants to come up with a UX for increasing the booking numbers in this situation.

The ongoing pandemic has brought a behavioural shift among consumers. Letting random strangers into your house has become a huge concern. This has largely affected the home service business. While some people are taking a risk by calling in technicians, there still are many who don't risk their safety.

Secondary Research

Finding articles Indian based articles on this industry was fairly hard to come across. So I thought of making a small assumption on human nature and behaviour during this pandemic. Be it in India or any country abroad, it's only natural for people to be worried about their safety. This pandemic has brought about financial crises on people as well. This assumption can be confirmed later with the information collected during user interviews.

On-demand home service was regarded as a recession-resistant industry in a few articles. Even if people are holding back from opting for these services, they will one day have to go for it regardless of their concerns. These services have bridged the gap between offline services that are available online. Users in the age group of 20–35 are observed to be more into using these services. This might be due to the convenience of calling for these on-demand services in their busy lives and schedules, but also because this age group is considered to be tech-savvy. Upon visiting a blog by Urban Company, I took note of all the measures they are already taking before sending the partners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these measures would be - daily temperature checks of the professionals sent, proper PPE kits and sanitisation kits are provided and utilised by the professionals, special training is given to them to maintain necessary safety precautions and many such measures.

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Having gone through many articles, a user in the age group of 20–40 seemed to be the one who would most likely avail of such services. The reason is the convenience of it all.

Screening

I had drafted a form to screen users I would be choosing for the interview and shared that with my friends and asked them to spread it in their network as well. Thanks to them I got whopping 65 responses. Even though the responses were good in number, not all fit the criteria. Though the responses weren't what I expected them to be, I learnt that the users' profile doesn't need to match 100% with our Target Users.

Primary Research

Conducting user interviews is one of the most favourite parts of mine in this entire process. Meeting new people and getting to know them has always been something I like and I happen to be good at it as well. As easy as it seemed to get people to conduct interviews with, it wasn't. I interviewed 5 users and focused mainly on how they are opting for on-demand services. Also, what are their views on the services available locally vs the ones available online.

User Groups

After sorting their pain points, it was clear that they could be divided into two groups - the Tech-Savvy and the Old Schoolers.

Tech-Savvy → They are the group who prefer the convenience of availing services online. They like getting these things from the comfort of their homes.

Old Schoolers → They are the group of people who rely more on the people they know than on online services

The most common pain point found in both the groups was the need for delivery of items from a local store which had become a hassle during the pandemic

Empathy Map

The empathy map helped me compose my insights concerning the user types

Challenges

After analysing all the pain points I listed down all the challenges that were to in concern:

The precautions taken during the pandemic aren’t made visible to the eyes of the user.
The users are concerned about how safe it is to take random strangers into the house without any idea of their health records.
The users faced issues about the reliability and expertise of the service providers coming for work at their place.
Users find going to local shops troublesome when online shops run out of the products they need.
Some users find the reviews from acquaintances more reliable than those online.

How Might We

Having listed all the challenges, the task at hand now was to convert these challenges into opportunities. Opportunities to make the service of the app even better and make these people.

Prototype Solutions

The wireframes built are just to represent my idea on paper. They are intentionally made low-fidelity so that I don't get attached to my own ideas, which is very natural to happen.

It is a natural tendency for people to believe and trust the word of the people they know. If while taking reviews, we take in the location of the user as well, and while displaying those reviews to another user show them the ones in a certain small radius on top. Due to this, the user might find reviews of people they know and gain some sort of trust or comfort in using the services.

The app already has a section dedicated to that displays all the precautionary measures taken by them during the pandemic. However, showing them the gist on the landing page will gain the person's attention and might reduce the safety concerns to a certain extent.

1. Building a sense of safety

In addition to the above change, the body temperature of the service provider with timestamp can be shown to the user along with other details. This will make their safety measures more transparent.

On booking the service, we are we move to a confirmation page. Here the name, review and body temperature (with timestamp) of the professional is shown. If the user feels unsure after going through these details, they have the option to CANCEL the booking and go back to book it again. They can press on CONFIRM to finalise the booking. There is also a REPORT option on top where the user can report the case if they find anything amiss.

2. Build trust between the user and the service provider

3. Help the users with their daily needs

Many users faced problems in going to the local shops when the online delivery methods failed to provide them with the product they wanted. We can introduce a new service where the local shops can register themselves for delivery services. They will search for the shops of a specific category near them, then order the desired product (if available). The shop owner sends out delivery, and the user on receiving the delivery confirms it.

There is a space provided to enter the OTP before confirming delivery so that the user does not press the button and confirm delivery by mistake

Here, I faced a problem - what if the user does not confirm receiving the order?

In this case, I thought the shop owner might enter an estimated time of delivery of the items ordered. If the user fails to confirm receiving the delivery, they will receive an automated call after the entered time to ask if the items were delivered.

Way Forward

I would love to test the feasibility of my ideas in a real-world- scenario. I also realise that being a beginner, there might be many loopholes and flaws in my ideas, but I am open to criticism and input on my work so that I can learn and improve it with time.

I am eager to implement my learnings on a full-fledged project where I get a chance to build the UI and iterate on the design.