UX, PRODUCT, UI
Spacious Technologies
Upgrading An Internal Dashboard Tool : The Host App
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Spacious Technologies was a network of drop-in workspaces that utilized under-utilized spaces such as restaurants that were closed during the day or buildings that had been sitting empty while they awaited new owners.
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Product Owner: Research, UX/UI, Service Design
UX research, Persona Building, Analysis of existing performace/bugs, Analysis of painpoints from new policy and service changes, Design development+ Iteration, User testing, Prioritizing features, Usecase break-down, Collaboration with Dev team, Cross product updates.
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For this project I utilized the classic double diamond methodology of Divergent to Convergent thinking.
Background-
The host app, an internal dashboard/client management tool for our hosts (employees) was outdated and riddled with bugs. It hadn’t been touched in years, and hadn’t been updated to meet the needs that accompanied our rapid growth as a coworking company. The host app was integral in the day to day operations, and had the highest impact on customer satisfaction and employee churn . Knowing how much improving this app could affect overall customer satisfaction, I had the task of isolating current and future friction points as well as spotting opportunities to help out overall business goals.
001 DISCOVERY
User Interviews & Persona Building
I began by conducting 10 qualitative interviews with current/ new hosts at the varying locations.
3 User Types
Host Managers
Experience Host
New Host (typical user)
+4 Variant for Personas based on location type and reason for working at Spacious.
Dedicated spaces
Partner spaces
Indifferent Personalities
Involved Personalities
Once profiles were built on the users, it was determined that focus should be placed on New Host Users working in a Dedicated Space, as they were the most likely to have the most pain points while using the app, at the busiest locations.
Designing for their needs covered most of the frictions in the service overall.
Problem Statements from Insights
When excellent consistent service is expected from part-time employees, How might we provide our employees (hosts) with tools they can rely on to best serve our customers?
What improvements need to be made on the app to help improve efficiencies and maintain quality?
To provide consistent service for our customers, How can we prevent increased turnover rates in part-time employees?
002 DEFINE
Pain Points Based On Insights
Pain Points From New Service & Policy Changes
Day Passes
To create a new revenue stream and to accomodate walk-ins, Spacious created a Day Pass.
Customers could walk-in and use
a space from off the street for $20
Day Passes were for 24hrs from purchase. Meaning they could expire mid-day, giving the hosts a new task of checking member’s payment statuses. At dedicated spaces this caused issues, since scrolling was the only option and the search did not show member status’.
Guest Hours
Members were given free guest hours to use with their month memberships.
If they went over their monthly allotment, they would get charged for their guest as if it were a day pass. This increased confrontations with hosts, as members would come to them with questions on their billing, but hosts had no access to that information or any information regarding their account.
Dedicated Spaces
Spacious began utilizing spaces empty while waiting to be sold.
This allowed for longer hours, more space, and new service features for our members. Hosts took on increased responsibilities, and the app became more and more glitchy as capacity increased.
003 DESIGN
Pulling Priorities from Testing
It was crucial to prioritize and compromise, because an overhaul was not a viable option.
Discovering and isolating on what features would produce the most improvements to the service with the least amount of changes to the app, benefit the users (the hosts), the company, and the customers.
Surveys, user tests, and other forms of feedback were set in place to inform us if we were designing the right thing.
Priorities Pulled from Discovery/Define Phases
Search in Space
Because of the increased size of our spaces, the member count in space increased making the list format of the app more of a hindrance than a tool. The User would need to scroll through dozens of members to locate a particular one in order to check the member out.
Member Information Cards: Organizing and Defining User Information
Changes to the business model meant changes in user types and membership types. If one of the main roles the host had was as gatekeeper to the space, it was imperative they know the status of the users to make sure all users in space were supposed to be there.
Information about service changes
With the influx of new host employees and based on the nature of the partnerships with the spaces, came an influx of questions with answers that existed in the previous app, but was not easy to find. Therefore new hosts were asking CX questions though slack that could have been learned through the help center. CX time was lost and hosts were left waiting on an answer that could have easily been resolved.
There was also constant information about closures and updates to schedule that hosts were expected to know, but had to ask for as it was a part-time position.
Performance
In the year and a half that the app was left untouched, operations had changed, and the influx of members varied greatly from space to space. In the spaces dubbed “dedicated spaces” there could be a large number of members in one space at any given time and it greatly diminished the performance quality of the app, as it had never had to handle capacities above 50 users before.
003 DESIGN
Prioritized Feature - Filters for Search
Searching Members Active at Locations
Because of the increased size of our spaces, the member count in space increased making the list format of the app more of a hindrance than a tool.
The Host User would need to scroll through dozens of members to locate a particular one in order to check the member out.
As a host user,
I want to search by name.
I want to be able to filter the members in the space, by members with guests, members on a day pass, and those who need to pay.
I want the members who have left the space to be seperate from members currently there.
004 DESIGN
Prioritized Feature- Member Information Cards
Member Information Cards: Organizing and Defining User Information
Changes to the business model meant changes in user types and membership types. If one of the main roles the host had was as gatekeeper to the space, it was imperative they know the status of the users to make sure all users in space were supposed to be there.
As a host user,
I want to see the history of the visits for each member/ company.
I want to be notified if special circumstances exist for a member.
I want the members to know a member is part of a team.
Outcomes
Three Key changes were made in order to efficiently update the app in the most effective way.
Filters on to help hosts find specific member’s information in space faster.
This required testing assumptions on which filters would be the most effective/useful in space
Exposing a side navigation with quick links to resources and updated information
for the host users.Quick links to information on the specific space, FAQ’s and a feedback portal
Placing each member on a user card allowed for less human error when messaging, checking in or out.
Moving each button apart but keeping the placement somewhat similar to the previous iterations of the host app allowed for a lower learning curve to the changes made
Notes made by Admin, to allow hosts to know of special circumstances.
Learnings
The role of Host is not as simple as it seems, particularly at a large high volume space. It’s a crucial part of operations. While the tasks assigned and the overall job is straightforward, when Hosts rely on unreliable tools like the host app, it is easy to get even more frustrated when the tool fails.
The key was finding ways to allow the user to gain trust in the app, to feel like their input was being taken into consideration, and provide moments of pride.