PostUp Design Sprint
Creating a way to help freelancers find remote workspaces anytime, anywhere.
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
03/07/22 - 03/11/2022
Platform
iOS Mobile App
day one
UNDERSTAND + MAP
The challenge I was tasked with solving within a swift, 5-day modified design sprint was creating a way to help PostUp’s users quickly and seamlessly find spaces local to them where they can go to work remotely. The solution would be provided to users as a paid subscription service that is meant to more than pay for itself, and provide convenience and efficiency for the user that they otherwise wouldn’t have.
On day one, before anything else, I was supplied with prior user research from PostUp to gain a clear understanding of the problem space; this included documentation of existing solutions to the problem and multiple user interview insights. My job from here was to synthesize all the existing research I was provided, and then hit the ground running once I'd established a solid foundation for the design sprint.
User Interviews
I reviewed the previously conducted user interviews, which were guided by this central prompt:
"Tell us about your experience finding a public place to do remote work from".
These interviews yielded several crucial insights about how users currently solve their problem, and what pain points they experience within the problem space, too; below are three quotes from users that I found most insightful.
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!
- Claire
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.
- James
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.
- Adam
From all of the user interview highlights I reviewed, I was able to pull some common themes and shared sentiments that would guide how I moved forward in the design process:
-
Knowing hours of operation and the most popular (i.e. crowded) times to visit the business is beneficial;
-
Noise levels are of concern depending on the nature of the remote work; and
-
Accommodations within a business like outlets, reliable WiFi, and bathrooms are extremely important to users.
Persona
Based on all of this user research, one primary persona was created to represent PostUp's average end user.
"Nina"
Age:
32
Goals:
-
Spend less time finding public places to work from
-
Find places that have basic amenities she needs to do her work, before she settles in to start working
-
Find a place to work that isn't too crowded or noisy
Pain Points:
-
Often spends more time looking for a place to work than she spends actually working
-
Occasionally arrives to a space, only to discover after settling in that it lacks the amenities she needs (e.g. WiFi, outlets, bathrooms)
Map
At this point, I had a much clearer understanding of what the problem is, and who I'm solving for. Now, I could really jump in and imagine what the possible end-to-end user experience might look like.
By mapping out this flow on paper, I was able to visualize each step in the process of completing the most critical task: efficiently and easily finding a space to conduct remote work.
Recruit
Looking ahead to the last day of the sprint, I made it a point to recruit 5 participants by the end of day one who would take part in a basic usability test once I had a prototype of my solution. 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 actual, immediate user feedback to evaluate the solution and bring back to PostUp.
day two
SKETCH
To begin Day 2, before I began to sketch out possible designs, I started out by conducting a round of lightning demos within 25 minutes to find three existing solutions to the problem I identified yesterday. I identified WeWork, Remoters.net, and WorkFrom as the top existing competitors and resources for remote workers in need of a workspace.
Each of these companies aims to help their users find resources and reliable workspaces local to them, however none of these solutions successfully addresses the entirety of the problem space that freelancers and remote workers face; each of these existing companies only solves one part of the bigger problem. Nonetheless, these seem to be the best existing solutions on the market right now.
Crazy 8's
Once I finished up my lightning demos, I considered which screen from the flow I mapped out on day one would be the most critical to the user experience: I decided that the screen where a user selects their workspace preferences would be the most logical place to start since this is what would guide the interaction with the product.
By conducting a "Crazy 8's" exercise, within 8 minutes I sketched out 8 basic sketches of what the critical screen could potentially look like.
Solution Sketch
I then reviewed each of these quick sketches and decided to combine different elements of several screens to create a an optimized low-fidelity sketch of the solution flow.
I created this improved version of the critical screen, along with the screens that come before and after it in the flow.
day three
STORYBOARD
I hit the ground running on day three by imagining and sketching out the full user flow of how users would fulfill their goal of finding a suitable place to work remotely for the day.
The experience of completing this goal was designed to both help the user find accommodations that suit their needs, and also to consider where they want to find those accommodations: in this new design for PostUp, the user can search for their ideal workspace either in the vicinity of their current location, or they can choose to search within an entirely different location if that is what they need.
Beyond that, I wanted to make sure that users could compile and save the locations that best meet their preferences so they could reference them quickly in the future if need be; I accomplished this by designing a "favorites" screen where the users can access this information.
day four
PROTOTYPE
With a simple yet effective flow drawn out, and with confidence in my low-fidelity designs, I transferred the sketches to a digital setting in Figma to create a high-fidelity prototype of this new design for PostUp.
Because of the time constraints of this sprint, this prototype was created in just one day and consists of the five screens produced on day three. Even with these limits, I produced a prototype that modeled how the experience would truly look and feel as a real product, to the real end-user.
.png)
day five
TEST
It was time to put my solution to the test and evaluate how well it can actually solve its users problems.
I conducted five remote usability tests with the participants I recruited back on day one. The scenarios and tasks given to each participant were the following:
-
The user is in need of a location to work remotely for the day in Richmond, VA.
"You've signed in to your PostUp account, and as a freelancer, you need to find a location in Richmond, VA where you can work remotely for the day."
-
The user has previously used PostUp to find their preferred workspaces, and they saved these locations to their account. so they can refer to their preferred locations in the future.
"You've used PostUp to find workspaces in the past, and after having good experiences with some of these places, you saved them to your account for future reference. Now, you want to return to one of those places and need to go back and look at that location's information again."
Each of these tests, while simple and straightforward given the lean prototype we were working with, yielded valuable insights that would almost definitely be incorporated into the design if PostUp chooses to move forward with this solution.
Key Insights
This design was generally very well received and the test users did not run into any experience-breaking issues at all during their interactions. Many users commented on the clarity and quality of content, indicating that this would be a useful service to them if it was available.
I discovered two main insights that were particularly interesting after conducting these tests:
-
4/5 of the test users did not adjust their preferences/filters until after they clicked on a location and looked at the photos, tags, and reviews- they went back to the search results page only after looking at a particular result; and
-
Users would have appreciated seeing how crowded/busy a location is at different hours of the day (similar to how Google displays this information)
final thoughts
THE TORTOISE OR THE HARE?
In my design career to this point, I've most often followed the waterfall approach to UX design in order to deliver the best possible work to my users. So, taking on a design challenge like this was admittedly a bit intimidating at first: especially since this was my first stab at working within a design sprint methodology.
Once I got going though, I realized that to solve a problem like the one PostUp began with, conducting a design sprint was exactly the right route to take. In this week, not only was I able to ideate and design a solution, but I was also able to evaluate this solution with real target users to understand and work with those who would actually benefit from the service.
PostUp gained hugely valuable information during this week and was able to test a potential solution for their users without investing much time or money into the process.
Overall, I feel enlightened after taking on this challenge. I learned how to quickly design a solution to an organization's problem while still consulting those I was designing for, and how to quickly prototype that design with the aid of a basic iOS UI kit.
Next Steps
I plan to do further usability testing with more real people to figure out 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 the user can best make their decision about where to work.