Good Contractors often don't need to market their service as their ever-growing network does the work for them.
This outcome quickly turns into a double-edged sword as several work inquiries a day is excellent for the business, but at the same time creates a large backlog of scheduling.
To transparently streamline general contractors' initial planning and consultations for their potential clients.
This objective will allow the general contractor to focus on their current projects while incoming inquiries are consolidated through technology.
In 2020 to 2022 I was working under the wing of a General Contractor specializing in Carpentry. As UX Designer immersing myself and observing how the user experience of the field operates, I found potential opportunities within the trades industry.
The owner of the small business proposed for me to make a website for him. With previous conducted observational research, I pitched an opportunity to create something more than a simple website.
Through the double diamond Design process, the project dives into connecting discovered pain points to design opportunities in the daily life of a General Contractor. Partnering up with XD and Multi-Media Designer Mathisan Paramanathan and Adam honed in on one opportunity to create Dovetäil. With the support of Software Developer Harmen Leusink, the web-based product streamlines the communication process between the trade business and their clients.
I conducted observational research for the working process of the business. The graphic below illustrates some key findings that inspire the project.
1. What does a day-to-day workflow look like?
2. How does the team communicate with each other?
3. When are the most crucial points of contact between the company and clients?
4. Where are all the tools and materials situated?
Looking at the websites for small business General Contracting companies, initial administration generally processes through a simple contact request form. The websites primarily market to gain more traction for client networking.
Reflecting on the research analysis, we used the generative method activity called Crazy 8s to explore design opportunities. The highlighted ideas will combine to one to create a service-based product.
In the final preparations before pitching to the owner of ACCG, we helped visualize the opportunity through storytelling, journey mapping, and the experience definition.
To help visualize the work-life of the General Contractor, we created a journey map variation of his day-to-day interactions with clients while at work. The red illustrates the process of making an estimate. The yellow represents all the back and forth of questions concerning material. The blue symbolizes all calls from potential clients inquiring about his availability.
Dovetäil is a web-based digital estimate generator that streamlines initial administration processes for a small business general contracting company. Potential clients go to the website as their first point of contact. From there, they can get a rough estimate of cost and time for their renovation. They may also see the company's schedule and choose three dates they would like to do their renovation. This estimate becomes a form that the clients can send to the company in order to plan the first job site visit.
1. "I'm not as tech savvy as others, I'm interested to see how I can easily interact on my end of the platform."
2. "You've highlighted a very key pain point in my work life."
3. "I wonder how we can update metrics as my labour + material cost changes."
4. "I like the way you've described how each GC company has their own ways of the renovation process."
To help find a third party booking platform we could use for Dovetäil, we created a competitive analysis through a perceptual map. In relation to booking features and transparency from B2C we found a number of Dovetail is essentially the booking and transparency capabilities of Airbnb applied to General Contracting.
There isn’t existing 3rd party services for clients to book multiple date ranges, only hourly and daily (ex. calendly)
We concluded that we would have to develop both the estimate generator and booking system ourselves. Here I would reach out to my Software Developer friend from exchange, Harmen Leusink to help with back end development.
The service blueprint helped us pinpoint how both the client and the contractor will interact with Dovetäil. Additionally, the blueprint helped the software Developer visualize the back end of things.
The service blueprint helped us pinpoint how both the client and the contractor will interact with Dovetäil. Additionally, the blueprint helped the software Developer visualize the back end of things.
1. "I will be able to extract data from a Google Sheets file and implement it into the sites generator."
2. Sit down with GC to acquire exact metrics / confirm interactions.
3. Start Wireframing.
To help ground the Dovetäil features in terms of feasibility, we used the MoSCoW Method. This method helped streamline a game plan for version 1 of Dovetäil and a glimpse for the future.
We ideated the wireframes of the website pages and went over the visual layout and information architecture with our client in order to proceed with UI Prototyping.
We designed the UI prototype on Figma in order to do testing before building the website on Webflow.
Coming soon!
