Runrr
Hire someone to get your chores done, as EASY as getting a UBER.
School: LWtech | Professor: Benjamin Meyer | Type: App Interface | Role: Lead UX Designer of 3
Runrr
Hire someone to get your chores done, as EASY as getting a UBER.
School: LWtech | Professor: Benjamin Meyer | Type: App Interface | Role: Lead UX Designer of 3
Problem
In today’s world, people are busier than ever, which makes it harder to get everyday tasks done.
How do you find time to hire somebody you trust? Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to clean your dishes, walk your dog, or pick up your groceries as easy as getting an Uber?
Solution
We designed an app that matches gig seekers (Runrr) and customers based on their location, availability, certification, and preferences. The app features on-demand mobile service by filtering down the type of chores and matches with the best candidate. The two-way rating and certification system keeps both parties safe and rest assured.
Result
- Designed a profile matching system to deliver customers on-demand in-home chore services.
- Assured the safety of both the customers and job seekers by providing a two-way rating system, and certifications/badges for their profiles.
- Included pet profiles under customer profiles.
Research
Quantitative Survey Results:
To find out if our service is on-demand and how people like them to be done, we conducted this Quantitative survey (Based on 15 responses) to lead our final prototype.
Have you used any of the service apps below? Select all that apply:
Uber
80%
Uber Eats
53.3%
Doordash
40%
Craigslist
33.3%
Lyft
33.3%
Domino Pizza Delivery
26.7%
Prime Now
20%
None above
13.3%
TaskRabbit
6.7%
Which app do you use the most?
- Uber:
- is the one I use the most;
- is the only one I really use at all;
- convenient
- convenience;
- Great service;
- Easy to use, is fast and available all the time.
- need for transportation, practical reason
- Prime Now:
- Convenience
- ease of shopping
- All trails:
- Because I hike a lot
- Netflix:
- Very easy to use and you can just click on the icon of what you want to see.
- None above:
- Never used these apps before
- TaskRabbit:
- Bad user interface;
- Craigslist:
- is outdated;
- Uber Eats:
- Limited availability;
- Doordash:
- Not user friendly;
- Domino Pizza Delivery:
- Poor service
- Audible:
- Because you have to go back and forth between the website and the app to purchase books you can’t just use the app.
- None above:
- 6 answers
Assuming that there’s an app called Runrr, and Runrr offers to do errands for you. Just like Uber and Lyft, but instead of only giving rides, our Runrr would come to you and do your laundry, wash your dishes, walk your dogs, or any other task.
Would you use the Runrr app?
How comfortable are you to have a trained and background checked Runrr to come into your house and service you? 1 being not at all, 5 being very.
Key Takeaways:
It was kind of expected but still surprising to see that most of the answers we got are about Uber. Uber was the most used and favorite of nearly half of the participants because of its convenience, and it’s always available when needed. From other participants’ answers, we also learned that people choose a particular app like Netflix because of its user friendliness. Some, would favor an app like All trails because they needed it’s functionality.
When it comes to least favorite apps, almost all apps was mentioned except uber, lyft and Prime Now. People are bothered because of bad user interface, usability and limited availability. This was expected. It’s difficult to get a detailed answer out of an online survey.
From this survey, we are glad to hear that most people would user Runrr, and are somewhat comfortable to have trained Runrr to come into their houses to service them. When it comes to bidding price vs. set price, people would like to keep both options open, and favors bidding price. This means that there are concerns about money. And this leads to my next question which surprised me a bit. People would rather have a list than having the system automatically matching them with someone. This is great to know because it makes our vision more clear of what the app would do. Another surprise is that when it comes to cat/dog friendliness, children and senior profiles, over 60% of people would have no problem displaying these info.
Quantitative Interview Questions:
- Have you used any of the following: Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Doordash, Domino Pizza delivery, TaskRabbit, Craigslist and Prime Now. Tell us how you feel about them. What are the pros and cons?
- Can you tell me/us what kind of errands do you dislike most? How would you expect an app like Runrr to improve your experience?
- Would you like this app to bid prices (for best value) or a set price per errand? What about both?
- Would you like this app to match you with the best candidate (faster matching) or provide you with a list of candidates with their bid price(best value)? If a list of candidates, how many?
- Would you like to keep a list of your favorite candidates or having a new candidate every time?
Interviewees:
Andria has a degree in both fashion and web design. She’s a brand new mom and entrepreneur who also likes socializing with friends. Being her friend, Gloria knows how passionate Andria is towards her dreams and everything else she wants to do in her life, but her time is very limited as she has to play so many roles. Gloria decided to recruit Andria because she knows that she needs an app like Runrr to free her hands from running errands. She wants to be more productive in building her career and spending more time with her friends and family.
Juan is a millennial demographic that needs to be targeted. He is interested in technology also, it’s the type of cater audience that could potentially be interested in this service. Affluent, young, and open to new ideas and outsourcing tasks. We have basically approached the potential subjects by asking them if they would be interested in a concierge service/outsource tasked based application service.
Quantitative Interview Results:
- Andria’s most used and favorite app was Lyft. She liked how fast and easy the processes is. She can easily see a picture of the driver’s face and a picture of the car they are driving. She also enjoys the occasional conversation with the drivers.
She was excited about Runrr. She said that if she has this app, she would mainly use it to do grocery shopping and washing dishes. Andria is willing to pay around minimum wage and she’s not concerned with safety as long as there’s a background check for all Runrrs. For certain tasks like coming into one’s home, it would be great to meet in person first. She also pointed out that she would expect Runrr to train the Runrrs with basic guidelines, for example an etiquette course and customer interaction training. She thinks bidding price is a great idea for some tasks, since some of them might take more time than others, she also thinks that keeping the option of having a set price is also a good idea. Andria first thought having the app to match her with the best Runrr is what she wanted, but after she understood the app structure better, she’d rather see a list of Runrrs with their bidding prices. Lastly, she thinks that feedback is very important and she’d be actively providing feedback.
- Juan is mainly interested using Runrr to do laundry because he dislikes doing the laundry chore. He would pay from $15-30 for this task. He is not open to other possibilities because he thinks that over $30 is too expensive. Juan would prefer it to be a set price instead of bidding, and he has little concern about anything else except the price. Background check is expected for him but he’s not too concerned about rating or customer service because he thinks that everyone can do laundry and is his belief that no one pays attention to the rating system anyway.
We found a lot of useful information from these interviews that made us come up with a graph like this. It sums up what we imagine how the app works. This graph will improve as the project develops.
Key takeaways:
It’s important to have a rating system, maybe a profile for everyone.
Our service needs to be affordable for people to be open to more everyday tasks.
Having a “meet and greet” option for customers.
Having a choice of requesting the same Runrr for different tasks.
Perhaps, in the beginning, no one with criminal records could be Runrrs.
- Provide customers with 2 types of options when it comes to choosing a Runrr. Either let the Runrrs bid the price for the best value, or let the app figure out the best fit for quick matching.
- The bidding system would help create a market where Runrrs who would do the work for less would be able to gain more customers.
- Background checks, basic training, and guidelines are not just needed but expected.
- Our interviewees seem open to the idea. Excited about it.
- Even though, most people won’t talk about it much, when it comes to privacy they tend to be very concerned, once we asked a few questions. I am not sure if this had to do for the fact that when they were being interviewed, they were not susceptible to groupthink. Meaning that most people usually take the group’s consensus.
- After the interview, we improved the graph.
Contextual enquiry:
Let’s use TaskRabbit for our test. Assuming you need some help with errands around the house. Let’s say that you have a cat and a toddler.
- First, check out your profile.
- Tell me how you feel about this profile.
- Is everything on the profile helpful? Make sense?
- Is there anything else you expect to see here?
- First, check out your profile.
- You’d like to have someone clean your kitchen on the furthest date. Task size is medium. Walk me through the process slowly and try to think out loud as you go. Ask how they feel about each page.
- If it says “There are no taskers available to help for the selected date and time.” Ask them how they feel. Is there anything that could be done by the app to improve runner’s availability?
- Alternative: you’d like someone to assemble your bed frame. Walk me through until you see a tasker profile.
- You’d like to have someone clean your kitchen on the furthest date. Task size is medium. Walk me through the process slowly and try to think out loud as you go. Ask how they feel about each page.
- Check out a tasker profile:
- Tell me how you feel about this profile
- Is everything on the profile helpful? Makes sense?
- Is there anything else you expect to see here?
- Does any of these factors influence your decision of hiring someone?
- Would you hire any of these taskers? Why and why not?
- Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience on TaskRabbit?
Contextual inquiries results:
- Josh is an art director and he has given us a lot of good information about the interface of TaskRabbit. He thought the grouping/categories did not make any sense. For example, Furniture assembly, mounting can all be in the same category with home repairs. Also, the hierarchy did not make sense. For example, he thinks that moving is not something people do often, and therefore it should not be the first picture; instead, cleaning should be first because it’s probably the most often errands. Finally, the pictures they are using are not very attractive, there are not enough contrast on the interface and the fonts are too small for mobile devices.
When Josh is trying to find a tasker, he forgot to input what particular task he wanted the tasker to do because there are no prompt on the interface. He was also not clear when he tries to choose the time. When he sees the screen of all the available taskers, he liked that there was a banner that says “All our taskers are ID and background checked”. However, when he clicks on it, the information was about how the app works.
- Juan is a tech savvy and he understands how everything works. He does not seem to have any problems navigating through the app and finding a tasker. However, he also forgot to input what task he’d like the tasker to do. Lastly, Juan also has problems with the categories.
Key takeaways:
The main problems people have with TaskRabbit are the categorising and missing a prompt of the task details. The other problem is its interface: the home page does not have enough hierarchy and the contrast isn’t enough to make important things stands out; the font sizes are too small for a mobile devices. Lastly, the app does not seem to deliver a safe environment when the user click to see how people are id and background checked.
Reflection:
Survey: It’s a learning opportunity for me because I realized that when I ask a question online, people do not like to type if they don’t have to. I was afraid of making people read too much instead of giving me information, but if people don’t understand what I’m asking for, they would just give me useless information. It’s important in the next round to be as specific as possible, and try to get them to care, engage and talk more.
Interview: This was the first interview we conducted, and therefore we did not have anything concrete to ask our participants. After the first round, we decided to improve our questions and draw a graph that will help explain how we imagine the app would work. And that helped people visualize our vision and help giving opinions and sharing concerns. Since this is a face to face interview, we were able to clarify and asking probing questions, which is a great advantage than online survey.
Contextual Inquiry: This was a bit more challenging because we don’t have a good enough competitor app to test with. TaskRabbit was not a good example and therefore there were a lot of distractions. It did give us some good insight to not to do something like a task name is a must and don’t skip prioritizing and categorizing tasks. This is a great chance to see how people interact with an application, so we can improve our designs in the future.
Conclusion: Overall, we were able to find a lot of solid information that would help us start the project. I feel more clear than before about what we are going to do.
Personas:
Low-fidelity Wireframes:
High-fidelity Mockups:
