Value Added Services | Shienel A Portfolio

Value Added Services Upon Check-out

Project background

In the past the apartment rental company used to refill the furnished apartments with missing amenities within 7 days of the next move in. The company had to input significant amounts of money to maintain its brand quality and customer satisfaction.

To over come this problem the business would stop providing amenities as a basic service and give the option to the user to add on amenities and cleaning services as a value added service.

Proposed Solution

Offer a "BOX" to which includes amenities like dishes and tableware along with furniture insurance as an additional Value Added Service that the guest can order during the booking process

UX Research Methods

Online Research

To get a clear picture of the target users, competitors and UI trends I conducted a quick online research. Using Google Analytics I was able to put together a picture of what the average user might look like. Some of the findings were:

80% of users interacted with the booking system through a hand held device.
The average age group was between 25 to 35.
Furnished apartments were preferred over unfurnished ones.
Most tenants chose paying the rent monthly.

hands-using-tablet-screen-showing-statis

Design Approach

The user flow gave us a clearer picture on where to add this service, we wanted to give new and existing users the opportunity to purchase their "BOX" and add an insurance plan for the furniture. The best option was the unique billing page our tenants receive every month. This page can be viewed on both mobile and web through a browser or app however based on the initial research we decided to design keeping the mobile/app view as the primary interface.

UI Designs

Design Requirements

Since we were going to incorporate this service on the existing page, we needed to blend the new design into the existing one.

After going through the color palette, typography and design requirements.

What the designs needed to accomplish for the insurance plan:

Provide information to users about new offer
Give them the option to choose basic, standard or premium.
Show the updated price on the check out summary.

What the designs needed to accomplish for the BOX plan:

Provide information to users about new offer
Give them the option to add this plan
Allow users to view contents of the BOX
Allow users to view terms and conditions about BOX
Provide users areas to enter their shipping date and time
Show the updated price on the check out summary.

Keeping this in mind I drafted out the first wireframe as shown in this section.

Design Review Cycles 1-3

In the initial drafts we discovered a couple of possible pain points a user might have. Before we move to the testing phase it was essential that as a team were satisfied with the design internally. We revised the design in cycles and improved it as we progressed. It was in this phase that we also discussed error handling in each scenario

Testing and Improvements

We had 2 phases of testing. This first phase was during the revision cycles.I focused on finding out the following through a simple survey based test.

Test Objectives:

Outlining the pain points of users
Proper communication between business and user
Discovering interaction issues between the system and the user

Discovered Problems and Solutions

These pain points acted as a lighthouse and improved my vision on how the users would interact with our screens. Keeping the critical pain points as a foundation I proposed solutions.

Problem

30% of users were under the impression the insurance plan was a required fee

Solution

Added a 4th default option deselecting any plan
Improving on “optional add on”label

Problem

50% were unclear on the details of what BOX and insurance was

Solution

Improve copy explaining the offer, plans and cost
Highlighting the selected plan and price

Problem

20% Tried clicking other places to read more information about the BOX

Solution

Linking the Modal screen to the title and the image.

Problem

When the design was taken away 30% of users recalled the system required delivery date and address instead of delivery date and time

Solution

Make date and time picker wider
Include icon to help build stronger impressionImprove color visuals

Problem

Users did not know their total billing price until they scrolled to the bottom of the screen.

Solution

Make the total bill and the pay button sticky so users will know how their total bill changes when they interact with the system

After revising the design we proceeded to do a task based test. I prepared working prototypes and asked a few users to perform some tasks which I then recorded. To make the user comfortable I avoided using an office environment and chose a more open and comfortable place like a cafe.

Test Objectives:

Observing user interaction
Task efficiency
Tap errors / pain points

Below are the working prototypes

Tasks given to the test users:

Task 1- can you please choose the insurance plan with the best value?

Task 2- can you choose the cheapest plan?

Task 3- Can you tell me your total cost?

Task 4- Can you tell me how many “x items” are in the BOX?

Task 5- Can you tell me the shipping cost?

Task 6- Can you add the kitchen set to your bill

Task 7- Can you proceed to check out?

So what did we discover?

Our solutions proved a drastic improvement to how the users interacted with the UI.
Gave us insights on what areas users had accessibility issues.
How our users use hand held devices (One hand or two)
The right size to use visual elements to save space without compromising the content.

Error Handling

To get a 360 view on how the users will behave we must make allowance for users to make mistakes. The screens must assist the user if there an incorrect value or a missed field. This phase was vital to reduce risk the conversation rate and also avoiding cost and manpower to alter these mistakes.

Take away

We were able to succeed in reaching our goals because of the clear insights we received from internal and external users. Our goal was to help the business cut spending cost and give more economic options for users. Users can choose to include items which they need rather than having to pay more for items they don't.

I think the following 3 key points are the reason for this success:

Doing a initial research on who our users are and how they behave
Reviewing the screens with engineers, designers and business managers to check goals
Test, test and test! Critiquing and improving the designs till the goals are met