The Project
Whether it’s expert advice, support, or hands-on help, people don’t want to wait. They want to connect with someone who knows what they’re doing, right when they need them. But most platforms make that harder than it should be.
This project explores a platform designed for real-time connection; one that brings users together with trusted professionals across all fields, from medical and legal to creative, educational, and technical. Whether it’s a quick virtual session or in-person assistance, the focus is on clarity, trust, and efficiency.
The Core Design Challenge
“How might we design a seamless way for people to access expert support- instantly or in person- without the typical barriers of time, complexity, or uncertainty?”
Mission
Mission Statement
Tim, a busy young adult, needs a way to find affordable help for household tasks because his limited availability and high costs prevent effective management. Success is when he is able to delegate tasks efficiently, saving time and money over the course of 3 months.
Mission Objective
Our mission is to connect users with trusted, skilled experts across a wide range of services- making it easy to get help through virtual consultations or in-person assistance, whenever and wherever it's needed
CoVerse gives users the ability to talk to other users anonymously and share support and advice. The platform does however have security issues due to the anonymity of users
Just answer offers a subscription based model for users to connect and seek advice from experts. Their highest rated experts require a higher subscription fee
Research
The first step in creating the solution would be to understand the problem in more detail. And to do that, I needed to investigate both the potential users and the existing competition
Competitors
Taskrabbit provides users with a solution where they can hire individuals to assist them with tasks around the house such as carpentry, plumbing and more
Whilst each of these competitors offers a subsection of a solution to a problem, none of them offer it in an all-inclusive and diverse way to address the full problem
User Research
After interviewing an array of target audiences, the key themes and features users wanted were gathered and analysed. These were then used to guide how the app has been formed and they key things we knew you would want.
Using a diverse range of interviewees allowed the capture of themes and features other user groups may not have suggested- this allowed us to cover as many bases as we could. Performing the user research gave me the clarity to understand my user in terms of who they are and what they need from this product
Personas
The data from interviews was used to create user personas to help guide the design of the app, ensuring the product was user centred and focussed on delivering the maximum utility to the user. Below is one of the personas we used:
Having Tim and the other personas to remember what and for who we are designing this product helped keep a clear focus on how we could solve the users problem
The Solution
Understanding our users needs as well as what they value from competitors allowed me to come up with a solution based off 5 key principles:
Communication
Enable user-expert communication for efficient information transfer and allow users to talk to experts directly
Knowledge Sharing
Experts can share their expertise or knowledge with the user by any means allowing for tailored problem solving
Virtual Consults
Consulting experts virtually means efficient problem solving saving time wasted on jobs that don’t need a callout
Trust & Safety
With reviews and ratings coming from users and additional credential checks
Clarity
Chatting to an expert about your job before gives them clarity on what’s required and in turn provide you with clarity of the pricing
Sitemaps & User Flows
With the solution now in mind, we needed to understand how the product would work in terms of the structure and flow.
Sitemap
To ensure the product was efficient to use and enabled the 5 design principles, the sitemap needed to cover all bases.
The initial sitemap was revised using a card sort and this allowed us to better understand how the user would flow through the app
Main User Flow
The main user flow involves a user navigating all the way through the booking process from finding their expert to booking and confirming their expert
Creating these user flows allowed me to turn wireframes into prototypes, connecting different pages using representative elements such as buttons and input fields. Now I knew how the app would work, I could design the app itself
From Idea to Design
Creating low and in turn mid-fidelity wireframes helped to bring the ideas to life and served as a good place to review before adding colours and, imagery and icons
Incremental Improvements
The key features I needed to focus on were those where I believe the users would spend the majority of their time. The home page (left) is a key space to search for an expert as well as an area to view the most important information. Additionally, the booking flow, including the profile and availability pages would need to feel as intuitive and streamlined as possible in order to reduce friction on the key user journey
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Home Screen
Shows key elements such as search bar and important info for the user
Expert Profile
Displays the main elements the user will interact with when looking at an expert
Expert Availability
This page provides the user with the ability to select a date and time for their expert callout
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Home Screen
With colour and images makes the page look busy
Expert Profile
All important expert information shown to the user as well as the ability to view and add reviews
Expert Availability
Time selection does not feel intuitive and it’s limited by only showing 4 possible times
Bringing these key wireframes to life helped it feel real but also highlighted some areas that immediately didn’t feel right. For example, the profile screen felt very cluttered and difficult to read, whilst the availability page felt like it was structured wrong. Additionally, the home screen seemed like it fulfilled it’s purpose but it still looked busy and appeared as though it needed a bit of a facelift
Key Flows
Onboarding
Sign up
with the ability to sign up via social media
Onboarding welcome
Provides no ability to skip the tutorial
First Onboarding info
Uses accompanying text to explain key concepts
Final onboarding info
CTA changes from “I don’t want to see tutorial” to “Let’s get started!”
Home Screen
With colour and images
Booking an Expert
Home Screen
With colour and images
Availability checker
Allows the user to browse dates and times to find one that suits them and the expert
Service selection
Limited detail show on this page, with room to give the user more information
Payment confirmation
Does not make it very clear to the user what is being paid and when
Booking Success
After clicking confirm payment, the user is instantly presented this screen without informing them of any progress.
Adding colour and images really allowed the design to take shape and added new layers of complexity to the design. It was now ready for some testing
Testing & Analysing Results
With a prototype now ready, it was placed in front of multiple users who were given instructions on tasks to complete within the prototype. This was done on a live call where they were encouraged to speak freely. Their thoughts, feelings and general performance were organised and map onto this affinity diagram
Key Takeaways
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Users enjoyed using the app and thought it felt intuitive when they had a clear task in mind
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Homepage felt a bit overwhelming
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Confusion as to what different services experts offer mean
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Frustration at the time selection as it felt limited by only being able to show 4 times. Users wondered about the other times not shown
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Icons felt too thick
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Flow just ends when a booking is complete, feels as though there should be a “return to home” feature
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Booking icon in the navigation bar felt very ambiguous
With the feedback in this largely unstructured state, it was important to analyse this feedback and group it into common themes so paint a clear picture of the issues the prototype faced
Feedback, Planning and Next Steps
The users feedback and behaviour was further analysed and prioritised into a backlog of changes, complete with importance and time estimates:
This backlog allowed me to prioritise and focus on the most important aspects of the design to iterate on first and served as a good tracker to remember what needed to be done and in what order
Refining the Design
The feedback from the tests pointed out key changes needed to be made:
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Make the search bar on the homepage the key CTA
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Utilise whitespace and imagery for a cleaner look
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Restructure info on the profile page to feel less cluttered
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Create a clear hierarchy on the profile page
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Rework the time selection process
In order to improve on the design, the users feedback was implemented where appropriate in order to clean up some of the rough edges. Some of the key areas to redesign were the time selection on the wireframe as well as restructuring the elements on the profile (centre) page and overall making the homepage feel less intimidating and more user-friendly
Design Before Feedback:
Home Screen
Feels busy and no clear direction of what the user should be doing
Expert Search
Utilisation of the advanced search requires the use of this screen with some counterintuitive tile selections
Expert Profile
Key info about expert feels cluttered and the page looks very heavy
Refined Design:
Home Screen
Now includes imagery and greater whitespace utilisation
Expert Search
More intuitive filter selection and available from the homescreen
Expert Profile
Elements given more room to breathe and similar elements (rating, price etc) grouped
Along with making the changes listed above, some of the other key changes made were changing the brand colour of the app to a less striking blue to ease the visual load as well as spacing out elements and utilising whitespace more (centre image). Additionally, more imagery was added to the home screen to create a more visually comforting first page for the user to see.
Key Flows
Booking an Expert: (starting from the expert profile screen and selecting “Availability”):
Availability Checker
Less complicated colours make the page feel lighter as well as a new time selector
Time Selector
Shows the user all the possible times for the day as well as unavailable times
Service Selection
Now includes the ability to open a dropdown which shows the description of the service
Payment Confirmation
Page now informs the user of how the payment structure works
Booking Confirmation (continues from flow directly above):
Booking confirmation
Tells the user the process has started via the growing circle and stepped progress
Booking confirmation
Shows one step has been completed and the circle is growing
Booking confirmation
All steps have been completed and the circle is complete
With time the changes implemented started to make the prototype feel cleaner and more user-friendly. The small iterative changes all came together to make a big difference to how the design felt to use
Prototype
Booking confirmed
Shows the user that all steps have been completed and provides optional next steps for the user
Reflections
My journey as a designer over the past months has felt like one of growth, excitement and pride. As this is the first product I have designed, I have been very aware of where the app and I want to improve as a designer and seeing some of these already start to change over the course of this design cycle has been extremely enjoyable.
Many of the initial assumptions I had about design were reshaped and I have gained an even greater awareness of my biases and how best to keep them in check. As an aspiring designer, this project provided me the opportunity to reach out and connect with other, more senior designers who have been a great source of knowledge and advice.
I still have a lot to learn about this constantly evolving field but this project has taught me a valuable foundation that I can use for future projects and keep improving.
Next Steps
Whilst the prototype is in a good place at this moment, there is always room for improvement. Some of the key areas that need work include:
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The onboarding process and an intro to the product
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Refining the search feature
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Streamlining the flow to book an expert callout
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Add functionality to be able to search for experts at specific times
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Expand the “Experts” version of the app ensuring it remains consistent with the rest of the design
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Continue testing incremental changes with users
Thank you for Reading!