App Design
UX Research
The Client
Amber Personal Care is a home care services agency in Boulder, Colorado. They provide a wide range of services such as personal care, companionship, mobility assistance, and medication management to individuals who need daily assistance and want to remain in the comfort of their homes. After more than 5 years in the industry, they have positioned themselves as one of the top agencies in the state.
Roles
User Experience Researcher
User Experience Designer
User Interface Designer
Deliverables
Competitive Analysis
User Personas
User Journey
Site Map
User Flows
Wireframes
High-fidelity Design
UI Kit
Problem & Objective
There is a growing demand for caregiving services in the United States, and often there is not enough staff to satisfy this demand, or there is not an easy and effective way to find trustworthy providers.
The objective of this app is to connect every client who needs assistance at home with every skilled or non-skilled provider, and for every type of service regardless if it is companionship, physical therapy, pet caring, meal preparation, transportation, etc.
Research & Findings
It became clear from the start that there were two types of profiles, the client and the providers. The goal was to gain an understanding of each profile's needs and pain points.
Clients perspective
Lack of transparency in caregiver qualifications and background, leading to uncertainty and hesitation in the selection process.
Time consuming and overwhelming process to find the right candidate.
Lack of a streamlined communication channel to manage multiple providers.
Providers perspective
Individual caregivers rely heavily on local networks, resulting in fewer opportunities to connect with potential clients.
Spend too much time on payment and administrative tasks, and would appreciate a simplified payment process.
User Personas
It was important not only to define the two profiles (client and vendor), but also to distinguish the different personas in that groups, and to understand their needs, wants, and pains.
User Journey
By creating and exploring the different journeys I was able to emphasize key emotional moments that needed to be addressed in the app, as well as to visualize opportunities into building features.
Site Map
In this stage, I define the two different profiles the app will have, as well as all the sections included for each. It’s important to notice that an individual user will be able to have the two profiles, client and provider, and therefore the differentiation should be taken into consideration when designing.
At this point of the project I included the Development team so that they could understand how the app was going to be structured. Their involvement was extremelly positive, as they were able to provide valuable feedback on the sitemap and user flows, and it also allowed them to start developing the back-end before the design was ready, saving us plenty of time.
User Flows
This stage was helpful to provide a clear representation of the interactions and journeys of both clients and caregivers in the app. Additionally, it highlighted the importance of tasks such as profile completion for example, guiding consecuent design decisions.
Onboarding & Sing Up
Client: Service Request
Client: Review Application
Wireframes
Lower-fidelity designs allowed me to explore different layouts and screens that could serve multiple purposes. Also, it served as a first approach into the UI Kit, as I started thinking about the different components that will be needed.
High-fidelity Designs & UI Kit
Heading into the high-fidelity designs, my first step was to define the brand elements such as typography and color pallete. After that, I worked on the UI kit, establishing the different components that will be used and their variants. Finally, I dedicated time to incorporate the brand elements and UI components into the final design.
The app, Amber Care Go, is a sub-brand of Amber Personal Care, and their objective was to keep them somehow related.
Colors were based on the mother brand, but adapted to fit the digital space.
Typography is also similar, in order to maintain familiarity.
Light blue will be used as the provider primary color.
Challenges for future versions
In the initial stage, only certified and vetted agencies will be onboarded to build client confidence. However, this poses a challenge for individual providers entering an agency-dominated app. Marketing, product efforts, and a peer-review system in future versions can help ease the transition and maintain client trust.
Expanding beyond Colorado will also require careful management of service area limits to ensure providers can meet their obligations and deliver quality service. Also, it will be important to take into consideration the regulation regaridng this services for other states, in order to maintain a strict level of compliance.
Lessons learned
It's important to include the development team early on. Not only can they provide very useful insights on how to improve the design, but it also allows them to start working on many aspects that ultimately can save project time.
Take time to think and design for edge cases, they are important to allow users to complete tasks, and it's something that you don't want to wait until Devs or Q&A testers send you because you will be responsible for slowing the workflow.
For this project, I was outsourced from another company and asked not only to deliver the design, but also to manage the project and client relationship in the first stages, so it was a great opportunity to keep on developing these management skills as well.