WHY INSPERT?

BRIEF:

In January, 2019, Amazon surpassed Microsoft and became the most valued company on the planet. The success of Amazon is a legend that lies on the mass dissemination of mobile network. Amazon revolutionized the way of shopping by creating an extremely accessible platform that provides quality merchandise with affordable prices. Successful as Amazon is, yet this trend has not fully infiltrate the world of professional assistance. When people encounter problem and need professional advises, they still tend to the seek traditional solution by making reservations, or just wait on the hopeless service line. People today should get access to efficient and trustworthy whenever and wherever they want. Inspired by Amazon’s story, we intended to build a platform that delivers Instant & Affordable Expertise. And that is Inspert.

PROBLEMS AND POTENTIALS:

Starting with their occupations, hobbies, health and financial conditions, young professionals need a way to build consistent connections with corresponding experts to receive convenient and trustworthy advice, because the high-pace nature of their lives require instant and affordable solutions to various uncharted areas.

Inspert should contain a transparent and reputation-based marketplace to allow users to communicate with experts who fits their mind. The bottom-line of the app is to provide an expressive advice platform and a worry-free dispute resolution mechanism.

WHAT’S OUT THERE?

Are there any COMPETITORS out there over the market?

Yes, and Let’s take a look at the most outstanding ones.

CONCLUSION

6ya is an inspiring competitor to the instant video assistance department. JustAnswer is a more established network providing professional advice. Other apps like Oncall, Askedoo and TheQuestion are running like markets that users can buy or sell knowledge or skills by their own selection. However, None of these competitors are particularly successful to have accumulate a steady user group. The market is still there awaiting a competitive application that offers affordable and instant expert instruction and consultation services. The biggest challenge is sustain a high customer satisfaction rate through establishing a balanced dispute-solving protocol. Combining with appropriate marketing strategy and public exposure, this app has to the full potential to gain first-move advantage over its competitors.

WHO ARE THE USERS?

TARGET USER

The floor age demographic for this app is 18 as anyone younger is very unlikely to be capable of solving serious task independently or dealing with complex professional consultations. The ceiling age stops at 40 as anyone older than that has presumably established his/her own problem-solving relationships with confirmed accessibility and credibility.

Since the mission of our app is to provide a platform instead of online tutorship, our target users are expected to have equipped with basic independent problem-solving ability and a mature mindset of decision-making. The users must be able to understand and follow the instructions from the designated expert. Meanwhile, they should also be aware that they are responsible for their decisions, not the expert or the app. Last but not least, our target users needs efficiency and affordability.

RESEARCH GOALS

1. Explore the attitude of users about online expert assistance. What do they consider as the advantages of the Expert app, and what kind of concerns do they have.

2. Discover the popularity of the competing apps as well as reviews about their performance. Why do users choose to use it, and what features do they like/dislike the most.

3. Discover the most desired types of assistance the Expert App has to offer. What are the most palpable motives that drive them to use Expert App to find assistance.

4. Find out the source of information that made the users heard of a new app. What makes an Expert app feel helpful and reliable?

USER FINDINGS

Behaviors & Attitudes

1. Fast life pace force young professionals to seek online alternatives when need professional assistance.

2. Lack of knowledge about dedicated mobile apps.

3. Professionalism and customer satisfaction are the top priorities nonetheless.

4. Generally hold a positive attitude and believe convenience and mobility will be the biggest advantage.

5. Convenience usually stands at the tail when ranking the importance

6. Friend reference, social media and app store reviews are the common motives for trying new apps.

Frustrations & Concerns

1. Uncertainty in expert qualification

2. Insufficient trust when deal with serious, life-related and sensitive issues

3. Comments are too board, not specific enough

4. Require a certain level of skills or special tools to finish the job

USER PERSONAS

PERSONA FEATURES

Our Persona fit in the following characters derived from previous research and survey results:

1. Age between 19-40. with a bachelor or better degree. Most of them have a paid job unless being a student.

2. Most surveyors do not have the experience of seeking assistance from online expert, but are active to try out.

3. High reliance on mobile device over PC.

4. Convenience and easy-access is the main reason to try and use.

5. Professionalism and User Satisfaction are the top concerns.

6. Computer Software issue is the hottest topic.

7. Surveyors have more knowledge-based questions than skill-based questions.

OUR PERSONAS

CARD SORTING & SITE MAP

CARD SORTING

A Card Sorting study is conducted via UserTesting.com in order to categorize the itinerary users take to approach a successful service - from seeking desired help to rate the service. 24 people participated the test in 1 day of testing period and gathered the following result.

SITE MAP

The Sitemap is subsequently generated based the result of card sorting, from which we start to understand what consist a intuitive flow to find the right expert and what to expect after the service. The Sitemap below ideate the concept to breaking the service into four main sections: Settings 1.0 ( managing personal profile and settings), Discover 2.0 ( Filter and Seek the right expert), Favorite 3.0 (Save the expert after service for future quick access), and Conversation 4.0 ( Deal with the ongoing service and record ).

WIREFRAMES & PROTOTYPES

LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPES

HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPES

USABILITY TEST

TEST ANTICIPATION

Aiming and ascertain 100% Users would complete all the tasks and errands in my plan.

Assure no errors in the process of completing a regular expert call and no major obstacles in the expert message.

Fix potential confusions and errors in auxiliary features

CONCLUSION

The participants spoke highly of the clearness of screen hierarchy, easiness of navigation and explicit information articulation. Some have particularly appraised the logic of attacking non-experienced users. Participants are fascinated about the descriptions (which are drafted based on our persona portfolio) of the app and were eager to find out how these features could be accomplished.

Overall speaking, the test has delivered very fruitful results and inspire space for improvements, including some important ones regarding service termination and expert credentials. But in general, there are major difficulties in fixing these errors, so we believe the app could reach an other level within a comparatively short period of engagement.

DESIGN ELEMENTS

UI KIT

Color

Inspert uses blue and pink as the contrasting thematic colors to define the major UI elements. The blue indicates the calm and professional image of the app, whereas the pink brings a young and vigorous impression to compensate the blue.

Typography

Inspert uses Avenir as the exclusive typeface for its simple, clean and profession look. It, in the meantime, provides a number of weight options to distinguish text of different contents.

Iconography

Inspert distinguishes its icon selections by functionalities. The attainment of the navigation icons are in reference to the native UI elements of IOS to eliminate the obstacle of usage. The Service Icons are simple linework icons that symbolize the impression of a particular service types. The Core features are the icons that present at certain screen of the app when completing a certain task. They are generally more specified to suit the UI settings of the scenario.

UI Element

The UI elements are derived from the IOS UI prototypes while changes were made to incorporate with color and typographic selection aforementioned.

The Prototype

FINAL THOUGHTS & NEXT STEP

I am currently designing screens for Android devices. And I will conduct for additional usability testings to iterate the app. If I have more time, I will do user research on their in-store furniture shopping experience to improve my in-store features.