Mobile App - Contractor Job Workflow Optimisation
PropTech B2B Platform, Hardware Installation App for Trade Contractors
Problem
Trade contractors were completing only 12 jobs per week - significantly below expectations and directly impacting their earnings. Our initial assumption was that job complexity was the issue. However, user research and data analysis revealed the actual bottleneck: workflow inefficiencies in the mobile app were causing contractors to take 14 minutes per job instead of the 7-8 minutes we'd observed in internal testing.
Process
- •Conducted interview sessions with 8 contractors to understand and observe actual workflows
- •Identified pain points through journey mapping and time-on-task analysis
- •Discovered that contractors were getting confused and stuck in a loop at key stages of the workflow to test if the hardware was connected to the system
- •Led cross-functional workshops with operations, engineering, and contractor representatives to prioritise friction points
- •Applied systems thinking to identify opportunities beyond the immediate workflow problem - recognised that the existing component architecture was creating maintenance debt and inconsistent UI patterns
- •Created high-fidelity prototypes focused on improving the workflow and moving the testing of devices to the end with clearer messaging
- •Worked with engineering to refactor core UI components using a more scalable design system approach, reducing future code maintenance costs while solving the workflow issues
- •Ran interview sessions with contractors over 2 weeks to validate improvements
Key Decision:
The critical decision was whether to completely redesign the job execution flow or optimise the existing multi-step workflow. We chose the latter - improving information heirarchy so the contractor is given the most important job information first, and completion steps to test the installed devices into a single, linear mobile-first experience. This required significant backend changes to revise parts of the workflow, but testing showed contractors could complete the same job up to 50% faster. The primary trade-off was prioritising this experience improvement over adding a new maintenance job type. Additionally, refactoring the component architecture meant other workflows in the app would need to be updated to use the new consolidated components - adding several extra days of work. We accepted this technical debt repayment as it would reduce future maintenance costs and ensure consistency across the app.
Outcomes
- •Average jobs completed per contractor per week increased from 12 to 20 (approx. 67% improvement)
- •Average job completion time reduced from 14 minutes to 7 minutes (approx. 50% reduction)
- •Contractor satisfaction scores significantly increased
- •Support calls related to job confusion decreased by approx. 55%
- •Contractor retention improved as higher earnings reduced churn
Reflection
The key learning was the importance of field observation and talking with customers over assumptions. Our internal testing didn't account for the messy reality of job sites - with contractors having to juggle so many things at once. The workflow was confusing and slowing them down. If I were to approach this again and had been involved at the start of the project, I would have involved contractors much earlier in the design process, potentially as co-designers.