Rethinking a Start-Up's User Experience Design

Simplifying Home Management

As a consultant coming onto the HiredHome team mid-launch, the Founder/CEO and board of directors had already completed customer discovery interviews, established branding, and started outreach. While exploring the existing tactics, I discovered some gaps in their customer journey. With a fluid product offering, my first task was to redesign the homepage experience for prospects to understand the problem the HH team was aiming to solve: home project management.

Webpage MVP

The initial homepage launched for hiredhome.io was text-heavy, confusing, and lacked a clear path for visitors to take. In my opinion, the listing of product value props didn't do the product any justice. It didn't portray any visuals of what the software looked like, what engagement customers would have with the platform, employees behind the screen, and why they'd even want to "become a member". From a User Experience Design perspective, without knowledge of how this solution is better than competitors (Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack), or doing the research and job themselves, visitors likely got lost, confused, or simply did not trust the offering.

My vision was to create intermediary steps for a true user flow for potential customers, removing the "BETA" vibe and Investor menu option. We'd create value-led content to feature on this main page, allowing visitors to engage with more than a link to an entirely different-looking experience to sign up for the product. In addition, we'd want to track how visitors are interacting with the page to see where we can improve.

I educated the team on the need to tell the story of what services HiredHome handles, how much the service is, and what a customer would get for their money. I referenced documented customer interviews to call out the pain points of losing trust and getting unclear signals of what the product experience looked like for the size of their project. For this homepage, we'd want to build trust with elements speaking to how we solve pain points with the concierge and guarantee. Adding a lead generation vehicle as people visit the page gives both the customer and the HiredHome team value in giving the option to engage without committing to paying for a product since many customers are likely in different stages of their home maintenance journey.

My MVP organized clear sections of content:

• Hero with our main value prop and CTA

• Stock imagery & iconography to help visually tell our story

• Simplified copy to get straight to our main points of differentiation

• Email submission options calling out any users who are:

  • Simply not ready to purchase

  • Entering from an outside region

  • Simply wanting more education on how we serve customers

With these modifications, we've seen increased time-on-site, a handful of email submissions, and more visits to Pricing and FAQ subpages.

With these modifications, we've sent a simple survey out to friends and family to see if the value prop shown resonates better than before.

I believe more changes are needed in the coming weeks and will be combined with stronger marketing tactics (SEO, Paid Search, Social) to drive additional traffic and begin segmenting our audience.