Mar 2022 – Jul 2022
Overview — 001
As a key member of a cross-functional team, I led the design of several end-to-end flows as part of the overhaul for HelloTech's technician app. We reworked all the key touch points between technicians and the platform with the aim of achieving greater technician enablement.
Functions
Product Design
UX Research
Interaction Design
Design System
Design Team
Kareem Soliman (me) – Product Designer
Addison Smyth – Director, Product Design
Patrick Martin – Senior Visual Designer
Status
Shipped
Platform
Mobile, Native App
Timeline
Mar 2022 – Jul 2022
My Role
Design Lead (Account)
We transformed the cluttered notification list that previously served as the home page into a central hub, contextually displaying upcoming jobs, payments, and other relevant details. The revamped home page also included quick links to various parts of the app, facilitating easy access.
We brought together all account functions into a singular, easily accessible hub, including a new profile function and a support hub. This support hub integrates chat and knowledge base articles, aimed at reducing support calls.
We've revamped the current notification system, transitioning it into a dedicated tab for ease of use. In this tab, alerts are sorted by type, enabling technicians to conveniently access critical, time-sensitive job-related notifications. They can also browse messages containing platform announcements and responses to support inquiries.
Context — 002
HelloTech is a gig-economy platform that connects expert technicians with customers seeking smart-home services.
HelloTech's technician field service app is the core tool that underpins the day-to-day operations of technicians working on the platform. Through the app, technicians receive job offers, complete work orders, track payments, and manage their account. Yet, since its launch in 2016, the app hadn't evolved much and had its share of performance issues. These issues didn't just affect our technicians, but also challenged our support teams who frequently assisted technicians with app-related inquiries.
Problem — 003
Kicking off the app's redesign, user surveys and interviews quickly highlighted 3 key challenges technicians faced. While I had a hand in solving each, my primary focus was owning the end-to-end redesign of account management flows, which is the lynchpin of the entire platform experience for technicians and how they interact with HelloTech as a company.
Scattered account functions
Core account functions were scattered across the app, causing unnecessary confusion and inefficiency for our technicians.
Lack of support
The app lacked a central hub for support resources, leaving technicians to search around to find necessary help and information.
Not surfacing relevant information
The app fell short in effectively surfacing important job alerts and notifications, leaving technicians without easy access to key updates.
Research — 004
At the heart of our redesign process for account management flows, we leveraged the insights gained from technicians and stakeholders. We conducted extensive surveys with technicians and had insightful discussions with the Field Operations and Onboarding teams to better understand the challenges they grapple with day-to-day. Here are some of the key insights we uncovered.
Understanding our users and their needs was fundamental to our approach. Here's a brief breakdown:
Technicians rely on the app to receive job offers, manage their workflow, and interact with customers in their day-to-day field operations.
The Field Operations and Onboarding teams offer on-site support to technicians and often walk them through how to resolve in-app issues.
The key insights we uncovered influenced our design methodology and informed our implementation of the product strategy moving forward.
Difficulty searching past jobs
Technicians faced challenges with the existing job history search which was inefficient and restricted, as it demanded specific order numbers to retrieve past jobs. This approach was cumbersome, hampering their ability to quickly and effectively navigate through their job history.
Offer controls need more clarity
Technicians faced offer control issues with the job radius setting and offer suspension. Without a visual map, distant jobs were unintentionally accepted. An obscure suspension toggle also created confusion, resulting in unexpected offer suspensions, particularly for returning technicians.
Surfacing relevant resources
The app's inadequate support resources led to Field Ops team fielding unnecessary calls for basic support requests that could have otherwise been handled by the technician or via less costly chat automation.
Payment history lacks granularity
Technicians required a comprehensive payment history, not just for reference, but also for resolving potential payment discrepancies. This detailed record was critical in providing transparency and ensuring they had the necessary information to address payment concerns swiftly and accurately.
Opportunity — 005
We identified an opportunity to alleviate the pain points of technicians and support staff, by consolidating the fragmented account management flows into a unified hub. This would streamline access to essential functions like job history, payment history, and support.
Strategy — 006
Addressing the problems at hand, we set forth a series of user and business goals that would guide our redesign process.
Enable technicians with a great platform experience to reduce technician churn.
Reduce the volume of support calls by integrating in-app chat and a knowledge base.
Improve the holistic technician experience on the platform, so they can focus on work.
Add richer support features to help technicians solve problems independently.
Process — 007
Kicking off the Account flows redesign, I first conducted a thorough UX audit of the existing account functions. My goal was to determine the best way to bring the core flows, previously scattered, into one cohesive, app-native space. Here are some of the top-level highlights of that process.
Incorporating technician feedback from surveys, the redesigned main account view brought together three crucial features: support, job history, and payment history, simplifying navigation significantly. A single in-app hub now houses all support functionalities, which were once scattered across different platforms. This consolidation not only reduces basic inquiry calls but also accelerates resolution times, letting technicians focus on their jobs.
In the existing app, the History tab fell short in providing clear job and payment history details, so I took on the task of revamping these core functions. By introducing dedicated pages for Job History and Payment History, prominently displayed within the account view, we greatly enhanced accessibility. The redesigned job cards now highlight crucial information such as customer names, payment details, and quick links for note submission, as indicated by technician feedback. We also improved search functionality to include customer names and locations, not just job numbers.
In revamping the Payment History, I adopted a more intuitive structure—categorizing payments by year, month, and pay date—breaking away from the old system which was centered around jobs. Now, when technicians click on a particular payment date, they get a detailed breakdown of all jobs tied to that date, complete with all fees, and a quick link for each job's details. I also introduced a visual chart, as a simple, yet powerful way to instantly spot payment trends, helping technicians make sense of their earnings at a glance.
Taking heed of technician feedback, we transformed the ambiguous Job Offer Radius into an interactive map for a clearer visualization of job locations. This change directly addressed frustrations over unexpectedly distant job offers. In parallel, we reimagined Suspending Offers as Pausing Offers, moving it from a hidden toggle to a visible card across offer-related sections. This visible reminder, coupled with an 'auto-resume' function, boosts technician control, clears confusion, and ensures a smooth return to work after a break.
I also integrated other account features like profile sections, availabilities, and payment settings into the main account view for easier access. These were contextually displayed on the home page when relevant. Additionally, I added a QR code and 'send link' feature to the tech ID, making it simpler for technicians to share their direct booking links with customers.
Impact — 008
The renewed focus on tech enablement started to improve platform health. By streamlining functions and prioritizing user-centered design, we increased efficiency and technician satisfaction, fostering a more robust and responsive platform.
Reflection — 009
This part of the HelloTech technician app redesign served as a major lesson in stakeholder collaboration. Balancing engineering constraints, business goals, and user habits required close coordination across departments.
The experience didn't just elevate the final product; it taught me how to unify diverse needs into a cohesive design strategy, equipping me for future projects that demand a similar level of cross-departmental engagement.
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