Motivating
GIG ECONOMY PARTNERS
@ TaskRunner AB
MY ROLE: UX & VISUAL DESIGNER
TIME: 7 months | TOOLS: Analytics, Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch | TEAM: One UX designer (me), Founder, CEO, CFO, two marketing associates and a community manager
ABOUT THE BRAND
TaskRunner is a start-up that connects people who need help on small assignments with skilled people who want to do these assignments.
Existing Poster app
Existing Runner app
CHALLENGES
- Conversion & Retention
- Usability issues
- App and service reliability and loyalty
- Income tracking
- Only one developer
It’s the last day of the month. I hoped to earn some extra income.
I get a task at TaskRunner for 500 sek. It's simple and quick money. I can't say no to this!
I do the task and mark it as done.
He gives me a good rating and review.
I will get the money in 2-3 days.
Later, I sit down to calculate my taxes. How much did I earn from TaskRunner this whole year? How can I find out?
How can I increase my earnings? I wish this wasn’t so stressful and confusing.
Ali, 36, Professional carpenter, owns a medium size moving van
MY ROLE
As the only designer at an early-stage startup, I juggled a variety of roles and responsibilities including
- Designing new screens, features, and functionality from scratch
- Collaborating with the developer in ensuring efficient implementation
- UX product lifecycle including research (interviews, analytics, etc.), coming up with insights and creating a strategy from insights
- UI design
KICK OFF
PROJECT OUTLINE (as it turned out to be)
RESEARCH PHASE
Task posting and completion process
There was very limited information about the user experience and lack of clear goals. My first step was to interview some of the runners to understand their needs, motivations, and challenges.
I tested the app with 5 runners, some active users, and other new users.
INSIGHTS FROM USER INTERVIEWS
IMPORTANT STATISTICS (2 month period)
During registration process
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After registration process
THE DISCOVERY
Runners did not feel part of the TaskRunner team and didn’t want to give service charge. This insight was also communicated to the business and marketing teams for a business strategy to integrate the runners more in the team.
They expect to receive help and support from TaskRunner. For eg. Tips on how to land their first task, how to increase ratings, price quote suggestions, etc.
Runners are curious about other runners and where they stand in comparison to others.
RE-DEFINING THE GOAL
The project was divided into two sprints
SPRINT 1: To make ‘earning money’ less stressful, make income tracking easier and make them feel part of the community. This was to be done through the Runner Statistics page.
SPRINT 2: To create a better onboarding flow and reduce the confusion and frustration of the new users.
For the sake of this case study, I will only be focussing on Sprint 1.
"How might we make earning money less stressful, make income tracking easier and make them feel part of the community?"
IDEATION
To make ‘earning money’ less stressful, I decided to introduce some gamification elements into the flow. To instantly engage the user, I decided to include some important metrics that the runner would instantly want to see.
Runner ratings and reviews are important to posters when hiring. Hence, runners are motivated to increase their ratings and positive reviews. I decided to use this as the primary element in my design.
Quick response from the Runners was important for the Posters (information from Poster research) as they want to ‘close the deal’ as soon as possible. To encourage the Runners to reduce response time, this metric was prioritized.
Data from the last two months showed that the number of task cancellations by the runners had increased from 6% to 11%. To increase Posters' trust in the service and reduce Poster poaching by Runners, the following metrics were finalized.
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Repeat customers
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Cancellations
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Response time
To encourage users to improve their performance and get more tasks, I included a leaderboard, as a card. This list would be based on the number of tasks performed in a month. A notification about the top-performing Runner will be sent to all Runners as the 'Over-achiever' of the month.
I introduced the element of milestones, to give Runners clarity on their next steps and to motivate them to take more tasks. They will receive simple badges at various stages of the process, leading to the ultimate ‘Became a master’ milestone.
Runners expect to receive help, so I decided to use a 'Pro tips' section. These would be personalized tips based on the Runners performance and earnings.
Due to development issues of including maps and certain other types of graphs, the design was tweaked to include text-based personalized tips.
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
In addition to the runner statistics screen, a 'Runner academy' was created on the TaskRunner web platform. This would include tips and advice, tutorials, feedback from existing runners, tax rules, etc.
IMPACT
My contract with TaskRunner ended soon after the designs went live. I, unfortunately, could not track the data of the impact. The community service team received positive feedback from the runners.
REFLECTIONS
As the only designer at an early-stage startup, I juggled a variety of roles including designing new screens, features and functionality from scratch for mobile and web. Though it was an amazing opportunity for me in a growing tech start-up, my main intention of joining this team was to experience the holistic UX and UI process and to experience the power of empathy a designer is responsible for.
