Contractor Pro:
Designing Features for A Responsive Website
Research and Product Design
Contractor Pro
Contractor Pro is the flagship product of Logicel Solutions, a company geared towards providing web and mobile solutions for the trades industry. This mobile-first web product strives to help small business owners manage every aspect of the job, from clear communication, accurate estimates and efficient invoicing, through scheduling and task management.
My Role
UX Designer • Researcher • Product Designer
Tools Used
Figma • Google Suite
March 2024 as part of UX design program at Prime Digital Academy.
Scope
Comparative Analysis • Client/User Interview • Rapid Prototyping - Feature Cards • User Journey Map • Quantitative Desirability Testing (Kano Analysis) • High-Fidelity Prototyping
Methodology
The Problem
How can we help?
The Background
Owning a small business is hard work. Contractors in the trades industry are often overwhelmed by the necessary organizational and administrative tasks associated with running their small businesses. Many could use an administrative assistant, but they aren’t in a position to hire someone, so they are tasked with managing all aspects of the business themselves. Contractor Pro strives to ease the burden on these individuals by helping them digitally track and organize each phase of conducting their business.
The Challenge
Work smarter, not harder. Our team was tasked with designing new features to add to the overall functionality of Contractor Pro, specifically focusing on the organizational needs and wants of its intended user group: technician-turned-owners of small, trades businesses. As a new venture itself, Contractor Pro had a limited budget, so we needed to decide upon the most impactful and economical features to implement first.
The Process
How do we approach this problem?
The Iterative Process
When working on Contract Pro, our team chose to utilize a three-stage strategy: identify, evaluate, prototype. This approach gave direction and focus to the project, while also allowing for movement and exploration between the stages.
Identify
Where are we?
Journey Maps
Current Map
Future Map
In order to identify pain points and areas of opportunity in the current MVP of Contractor Pro, a journey map was created of the overall business flow. This map showed various touch points from awareness through invoicing and receiving payment. Mapping identified the following pain points:
• Awareness Stage- Contact happens from multiple sources at once, which can be overwhelming and difficult to track.
• Onboarding Stage- The process of creating client estimates takes extra time because information has to be repeatedly filled in, and then the estimate has to be printed, scanned, and emailed to the client.
• Payment Stage- The contractor has to create an invoice, print it, scan it, and then email it to the client. This process takes precious time out of a day.
“I’m usually working the weekend just to prepare the next jobs so that on Monday my guys can go out and work again. So if you’re busy, it’s pretty nonstop.” -GI, contractor business owner
The Users
We conducted a stakeholder interview in order to better understand the intended user group for Contractor Pro. We learned that the application is geared towards small business owners operating in the trades industry. These owners are often tasked with managing all aspects of their businesses themselves, an overwhelming burden that leaves them feeling tired and overworked, with very little energy or free time for family and friends. Contractor Pro aims to alleviate some of that burden by offering a digital solution for these owners. The platform must offer features that are intuitive and user-friendly, since many of these users are not tech savvy.
Design Goals:
create user-friendly features that help organize and track various aspects of running a trades business
introduce features that save users time and effort
create intuitive, user-friendly features with minimal time to learn and use the app
alleviate the perceived difficulty of learning a digital tool by making the interface simple, straightforward and functional
Evaluate
What else is out there?
Competitive Audit
After exploring other existing digital organizational business tools, we found that most options were geared towards larger businesses with more employees. Many were complex systems and charged hefty fees. Contractor Pro is unique in that it focuses on small businesses with only one to five employees. The analysis also revealed a useful list of offered features that could be adaptable for our smaller platform.
Prototype
What’s in an idea?
Rapid Ideation
Once we established our goals, our team set out to conduct some brainstorming of ideas. Seven low-fidelity wireframes were prepared as feature cards to be presented to the client development team for feedback.
The Development Team
We met with the development team from Contractor Pro in order to determine the budget for the project. Using a Fibonacci rating system, we established a scale for estimating the complexity and relative time required for developing each feature. Each feature was then assigned a number on the scale. It was determined that our total budget was 15 points, which equated to one sprint of development time.
15 points = One Sprint
(Re) Evaluate
Which features will users like?
The results from the survey were evaluated using the Kano Model. As shown in the “Performance” area of the Kano graph, the following features were found to be most meaningful for users:
Dot Voting
After meeting with the client development team, our team collectively reviewed all of the presented features and conducted dot voting in order to determine which features should be shared with users for a survey evaluation.
Kano Analysis
A group of nine potential users agreed to take part in a Kano survey. They were presented with ten newly-designed features and were asked questions such as:
• How would you feel if this feature was present?
• How would you feel if this feature was absent?
• Job Type Dropdown Menus
• Calendar
• Quick Action Dashboard
• Finance Tab
Biggest Bang for the Buck. In order to identify which prioritized features would both fit the budget and have the most positive, meaningful impact for users, these four features were next weighed against budget information provided by the development team. The user dashboard and the user calendar were identified as the two main recommended, priority features for further development, because they scored high on the Kano analysis, and together came in at budget for development.
Stretch goals. The send/approval buttons, and the drop down menus were identified as features that could be developed as time and budget allow, since they were desirable and useful features that required relatively low sprint points.
Prototype Again
What will it look like?
“Brilliant, possibly one of the most useful features for me.” - a user commenting on the calendar feature
High-fidelity Prototye
Annotated Wireframes. After determining which features will be recommended to the client, high-fidelity, annotated wireframes were created for inclusion in a client report.
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![Deck Image User Dashboard]()
User Dashboard
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![Deck Image User Calendar]()
User Calendar
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![Deck Image Send/Approval Button]()
Send and Approval Buttons
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![Drop Down Menus]()
Drop Down Menus
Next Steps
If proceeding with this project, I would…
• create interactive prototypes
• conduct usability tests
• work with the client team to implement the changes and bring the product to the next iteration
• continue to develop and expand additional features based on our research
In Retrospect
Understanding User Needs with Empathy
When I first began work on Contractor Pro, I didn’t realize just how much I could relate to the user group. As I listened to the user stories and read through client information, I reflected on my own experience as a small business owner and found I truly empathized with their need for help.
Running a small business is hard work and it can take a toll on owners. Having access to user-friendly digital tools to help organize and coordinate all aspects of business ownership affords users the freedom to take more time and rest easy. I took this to heart as I designed new features for these small business owners.
The dedication and passion of the client team was inspiring, and I am hopeful that the research and design we conducted for this project helps them achieve their larger goals of growing their own business while helping their users who are doing the same.