evan kerrigan

iPad App Prototype for Molly Maid

Designer, prototyper, and project manager for an end-to-end interaction design client project to prototype an iPad app for an in-house business tool to increase sales closing rates

Note: My client agreement prevents me from displaying detailed deliverables here; however, I can provide them upon request

“Working with them was an exceptional experience…they created a simplified, solid foundational tool that is the core of our estimation process.” — Manager at Molly Maid

Project Scope & Challenges

For over 25 years, Molly Maid has enjoyed great success as it has grown into one of the world’s largest professional housekeeping and residential cleaning services. Seeking new ways to improve its sales closing rate, the company decided to step outside the confines of the analog world by migrating to a more sophisticated, digital solution for their in-home estimation staff: an iPad application. In designing the prototype iPad app solution, we aimed to address the following five concerns:

• Quick and automatic price calculation as estimators navigate the house
• Serve as an interactive engagement tool to feature media for prospects
• Develop and maintain a professional image to lend credibility and build trust
• Create a business process that fosters standardized procedures for all estimators, while retaining some flexibility
• Remind estimators of key sales activities when engaging with prospects

Process

Research

As Project Manager, I led my team in identifying and interviewing the appropriate stakeholders—including executives, trainers, franchise owners, and in-home estimators. Through these interviews, we obtained a deeper understanding of the in-home estimation workflow, how their business worked, what the primary closing issues were, and how their prospective customers might react to bringing an iPad into their homes. We then conducted a competitive analysis to see what their competitors were using as well as similar iPad applications that offered task management, notetaking, calculation, and communication functionality to see what worked well and what to avoid in the application design. From this research we developed a set of three personas and corresponding scenarios to guide our design and maintain our focus and scope during the project.

Design

With the major research complete, we developed and compiled Use Cases to identify the principal features for the prototype and detailing its interactions. Concurrently, each team member took a set of use cases and designed corresponding wireframes using Axure RP Pro. After I completed my use cases and wireframes, I presented them to the rest of the team to request feedback and defend my design decisions as necessary. This feedback would then be used to in the next rounds of design for both the wireframes and use cases as they became higher and higher fidelity. We also continued to receive new information from our clients and stakeholders, some of which radically altered the primary estimation workflow that I was designing. The wireframes ultimately went through six major (and countless minor) revisions before being finalized as a high-fidelity blueprint for the prototype.

In conjunction with Molly Maid’s corporate style guidelines, I led the effort on a Style Guide document that detailed how the application was to be laid out and presented—including what should not be done—in order to ensure a consistent design should the application be implemented. Finally, I managed the prototype design and implementation using Adobe Fireworks and the Touch Application Prototypes framework. I designed the layout and elements for about 20 of the 80+ screens used in the prototype and ensured the interface consistency (UI elements, type, layout, etc.) across all screens designed by my teammates.

Usability Testing & Validation

Once the prototype was ready, we wanted to see how it would fare with actual users. We recruited five users to test the prototype and provide feedback on the experience of using it: Did the application workflow match that of the user? Were the navigation, icons, and terms used clear? Did the app feel more efficient than the previous pen-and-paper method? These were all things we hoped to find out in our evaluation. After conducting all five usability sessions, it was clear the prototype was successful overall; however, some more minor, but still important, functions were not immediately clear. We analyzed the feedback and provided the client with a set of recommendations to accompany the final prototype in case they decided to build the application with a developer.

Results

After hundreds of hours of interviewing and iterating on designs, we delivered a prototype to Molly Maid. While the iPad app was not fully functional, it provided them with a clear sense of how the application would work and how they would use it. The client’s reaction was overwhelmingly positive, stating that working with us was “an exceptional experience,” how it “was amazing how [we] took the lead in gathering all of the information,” and that we “created a simplified, solid foundational tool that is the core of [their] estimation process.” They informed us that they intend to develop their new in-home estimation app based on our prototype.