Chat optimization

Chat optimization

@Housecall Pro // Duration ~3 months

Helping HVAC specialists/business owners (aka “Pros”) improve communication with employees and customers with new chat features.

Pros has multiple issues with our in-house messaging experience:

  • Images would send immediately after you selected one to attach— users couldn’t make sure it was the image they wanted to send

  • It was difficult to sort conversations

  • It was difficult to find older conversations

The Problem ✗

The Solution ✓

Recognizing these problems I pursued designing these features…

  • Attached images populating the text box before sending

  • Ability to pin conversations

  • A search bar to find conversations

The process

The process

01 Research

To get some insight into the issues without current chat experience, I created a script to guide Pros through the product and conducted 3 live user interviews

After a few rounds of live user interviews, I gathered that:

  • 1/3 Pros struggled to add employees to the chat

  • 3/3 Pros wanted a better way to find older conversations

  • Pros were not able to select images without them immediately being sent- a major pain point

02 Wireframing

After presenting my research findings to to my product manager and senior designers, I began wireframing to structure how my features would look

Some of the things I had to consider were :

  • Consistency- I had to make sure the user experience was consistent with other experiences within the software.

  • Readability- I needed to create effectively labeled wireframes to clearly communicate my ideas to my fellow designers and deve

03 Feedback → Hi-fi Mockups and component building

After another round of presenting, I received more feedback:

  • Minimize scrolling- although the size of the cards allowed for more copy, I need to design the cards in a way that allowed Pros to see as many as possible with minimal scrolling.

  • Interactions- What would the cards look like after the employee enrolled in benefits?

  • Future offerings- how do we advertise that more benefits would be available in the future within the suite?

Based on the feedback, I made new designs with:

New card sizes that could fit the same amount of text, but would be able to stack in a single row (as compared to one card taking up the same amount of space).

An after-state that communicated to the user that they have successfully enrolled, with space for relevant metrics.

An ad banner to communicate future offerings.

I also turned the cards and ads into components, allowing for other designers to easily implement them in their future work.

Results

Results

✅ 35 Pros enrolled in payroll benefits

✅ Ad reported 4.3% CTR (clickthru rate)

BTW- my banner design became the standard component across all Fintech experiences :