Remote Workers' Pocket Companion

PostUp

Helping Remote Workers Discover Ideal, Accessible Workspaces

B2C

Data Visualization

Mobile Design

Overview

I designed and prototyped a mobile solution for PostUp that helps their users, remote workers and freelancers, quickly find workspaces tailored to their needs.

This solution solves a common pain point that costs users 20+ minutes a day and disrupts productivity. Built within a 5-day design sprint.

Key improvements

Third-party integrations (Google Maps, Yelp) to aggregate data
Streamlined, focused workflow
Foundational data set of user insights‍
Accessible (WCAG 2.2) color usage & screen reader compatibility

>25%

Faster

workflow completion time

Moderated

usability tests conducted

100%

Satisfaction

based on initial feedback

The full story

For a deep dive into this project and a closer look at my process, scroll down to continue reading!

Research review

Before anything else, I reviewed existing data from past research and interviews with PostUp users so I could gain a clearer understanding of the problem space we were working within.

"If a place has WiFi, outlets, and bathrooms, that's all I need. If I need to buy some food or coffee to stay there, I really don't mind. Bonus points if their coffee and food are actually good!"

"I like to know how crowded a place is; if I'm doing independent work, I don't want it to be super loud. If I'm meeting clients or coworkers there, I want to be sure we get a place to sit and talk for a bit."

"I usually look at pictures of the place before I go, just to make sure there's enough room for me and my coworker to take a table without feeling guilty."

After reviewing all of the existing data, I pulled common themes and shared sentiments that would inform my next steps:

Not knowing a location's hours of operation & most busy times is a major pain point.
Noise levels are a concern for many remote workers, especially those who frequently take meetings
Accommodations like outlets, reliable WiFi, and bathrooms are important to users.

Persona

Based on the information I had, I created one primary persona to represent PostUp's average end user and guide my design process as I moved forward.

Story mapping

With a clearer understanding of who these users are and the challenges they face, I could really jump in and imagine how the end-to-end solution flow might look.

I visualized each step in the process of completing the most critical task: efficiently and easily finding a space to conduct remote work.

Recruiting test participants

Looking ahead to the last day of the sprint, I made it my goal to recruit five participants by the end of day one to take part in a brief usability test to validate my solution design.

This way, I could feel secure knowing I wouldn't need to scramble to find users to test the solution on the day-of. It also meant I would get genuine, immediate user feedback to evaluate the solution and bring that back to PostUp.

Through email outreach to a pool of contacts that met my criteria and a brief screener survey, I successfully scheduled 5 usability tests to be conducted on the final day of this sprint.

Lightning demos

Before I began to sketch out possible solutions, I conducted an accelerated round of lightning demos (i.e. I quickly reviewed three existing products that solve the problem I identified on day one).

I reviewed WeWork, Remoters.net, and WorkFrom as the top existing solutions, since each of these companies aims to help their users find resources and reliable workspaces local to them.

What I quickly found was that none of these products successfully addresses the entirety of the problem space that freelancers and remote workers face; these existing solutions only solve one part of the bigger problem.

Rapid ideation

Next, in order to begin truly visualizing the workflow, I conducted a "Crazy 8's" exercise: I chose one critical screen from the flow I mapped out on day one, then spent 8 minutes quickly sketching 8 different versions of that screen to rapidly ideate and land on an ideal solution design.

The screen I determined to be most critical was the point where a user selects their workspace preferences, since that decision point will guide the subsequent experience.

Initial solution sketches

I combined elements from my crazy 8's sketches to create a an optimized, low-fidelity sketch of the solution flow. As a starting point, I sketched out this improved version of the critical screen, along with the screens that would come before and after.

The complete workflow

I dedicated the entirety of day three to fully defining and sketching out the complete workflow of finding a suitable place to work remotely for the day.

I designed a consolidated, streamlined solution that helps users quickly find and save locations that suit their needs.

In this new experience, users can search for workspaces within a set location that match their preferences as well as save the places that best meet their criteria for future reference.

High-fidelity, interactive designs

With a simple yet effective flow drawn out, and with confidence in my solution, I transferred the sketches to a digital setting to create a high-fidelity prototype within Figma.

Because of the time constraints of this sprint, this prototype was created in just one day and centers around the five screens produced on day three.

Even within these limits, I produced an effective model of how the experience would truly look and feel as a real product, to the real end-user.

Usability testing

On the final day of the sprint, I facilitated the 5 usability tests that I scheduled earlier in the week.

Each participant received the following two prompts:

Prompt 1

Imagine you're traveling in Richmond, VA and just opened the PostUp app, logged in to your account, and landed on this screen.

Today, you're in need of a location where you can work remotely for the day in Richmond, VA, a city you have never been to before.

prompt 2

Now, imagine you are back in your hometown, where you've previously used PostUp to find workspaces and save them to your account for future reference.

Today, you want to return to one workspace whose general location you know, but you can't remember the name or opening hours.

‍Your task: Find a suitable workspace in Richmond, VA.

‍Your task: Find this location's information in the app.

Results & insights

The solution was generally very well received, and users did not run into any experience-breaking issues during their interactions.

Noteworthy data points

The majority (4/5) of test participants did not adjust their preferences or search filters until after they chose a location and looked through the photos, tags, and reviews.
Users expressed a desire to see some kind of indicator of how crowded or busy a location is at different points throughout the day (similar to Google Maps UX).

In just one week, not only was I able to ideate and design this solution, but I was also able to validate it with real target users. This meant that PostUp would gain hugely valuable data and a solution that they could bring to life for their users, without investing much time or money into the process.

Next steps

I plan to do further usability testing to continue trying to discover the most intuitive way to encourage users to input their preferences, and I'd also like to incorporate a "busiest times" element to each selected location's screen so users can make better-informed decisions.

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