Recently I joined an enthusiastic entrepreneur, with a background in economics, and helped him make his long-waiting idea come to life.
"Genie was open to changes in the plan that I introduced during the process, but she also knew how to insist on her point of view, and managed to convince me about things she firmly believed in".
My Part in the project:
I was responsible for all user experience responsibilities, apart from graphical design (which was done by Inbar Leibovitz).
About the Product:
GetRealLab is a platform for reaching agreements, it allows users to give and receive offers without revealing sensitive information to anyone. Parties only find out about each other's real intentions after they have reached an agreement.
Any person or company can register using only an email address or phone number. After registration, they can send and receive offers. GetRealLab notifies users if an agreement is reached, until then there is uncertainty regarding the will of the other side. Once an agreement is made, both parties are bound by the deal (it is a signed contract).
The aim is saving users time and negative emotions, and creating opportunities for deals that otherwise wouldn't be possible.
This is how the final product looks now,
On mobile:
On a larger screen (tablet/laptop/desktop):
Process
a. Choosing the target audience(s)
Although the platform was meant for general use, I insisted on selecting specific use cases and audiences to concentrate on first.
Our choices were:
The dating process in the Religious Zionist Community.
The world of Insurance and legal claims, which includes two audiences:
Individuals leading claim processes
Representatives of insurance companies
b. Preliminary user-study
Originally my client didn't believe receiving valuable information without creating a prototype first would be possible, but I insisted, and he agreed. This research revealed a use case that we didn’t originally mean to address and led to a feature that became very important in the resulting product (keep reading).
The study consisted of interviews with potential users, that we recruited through our social circles.
The Interviewees were:
4 private users:
- 3 partner-seekers (2 men and a woman)
- A man in a process of a claim against a company
2 potential users in a work setting – lawyers that specialize in claim settling (1 man, 1 woman).
The Meetings:
With each participant I had an hour-long meeting on their current "work process" (without our product), aiming to know the audience, learning their language and identifying needs. The interviews were semi-structured, I was open to hear whatever the participants wanted to tell me about their process.
Interview Questions:
Private people leading claims:
Are you in a claim process right now? In front of whom and why?
Is this your first time?
What was/is the process?
What is most difficult for you in the process?
What bothers or disturbs you?
What would you like to happen?
What do you think will happen?
What do you think is fair? Did you claim only what you think you deserve?
Would you like to reach a compromise?
Were you offered a compromise?
Claim-settlers
How long have you been dealing with claims settlement?
Is that the only thing you're responsible for?
How is your day built?
What software do you use?
Are there other employees who participate in your work?
When and in what way do you contacts with the claimers?
What is most difficult for you in the process?
What bothers or disturbs you?
What affects your decision in a compromise proposal?
What hinders you?
Do you take in consideration characteristics of the client/claimer?
Are you trying to get information about your chances before contacting the other party? Are there any tools you use? Hints? People? Software?
The dating world:
How long have you been looking for a mate?
How does it work?
What is most difficult for you in the process?
What bothers or disturbs you?
Did you ever want to meet again (for a second meeting) and the other side not? How did you find out? How did you feel? Did you talk to friends and acquaintances about it? Did they find out without you talking to them?
Selected (Interesting) Findings:
In the dating world, there was a certain step for which the entrepreneur believed our product may be used – decision regarding continuation of dating after the first date. He believed people would like to avoid the unpleasantness of open rejection (or the fear of such), and the use of the product will allow it.
The potential users I met with weren't too disturbed about that step. As I found out, the young mostly use text-messages for rejection anyway.
But another relevant step was revealed to me through the conversations - the introduction. I found out that the common friend (match-maker) who offers the introduction may experience inconvenience if one of the introduced friends agreed for the matching but the second friend rejected: in such a case they have to explain to the first friend they spoke to that the other person is actually uninterested.
Thanks to this discovery, I proposed to add another type of offers - a third party can make an offer for two other people. Only if both accept it – there is a deal. This is currently becoming a main use-case for the legal world as well.
c. Concept Design
The planned platform was a responsive site. This would allow for both casual private use, and professional use at workplaces (the claim use-cases).
I offered a site with one main page for all types of offers (both sent and received). Each offer would be represented in a card, with the relevant actions.
Example of the main page from the original mock-up:
the top one is an offer received from a third party. Such an offer can be accepted or rejected.
the second is a 2-side offer, sent by the user to someone (only the top is seen). Such an offer can only be deleted.
another type of offer (not seen here) is 2-side offer, received from someone. Such an offer can be accepted or rejected.
The other main screen is the New offer form, here is how it originally looked in the mock-up:
d. Usability Test
I met again with some (other) potential users, and let them use an interactive prototype of the product. I gave the participants framing-stories and specific tasks, instructed them to "think aloud", documented their success on each step and wrote-down comments.
The Participants:
8 potential users:
• 6 private people:
- 3 partner-seekers (2 men and a woman)
- 3 private individuals with ongoing claim processes.
• 2 potential users in a work setting - lawyers working in companies representing both insurance (and other) companies and private individuals.
The Tasks
Participants for the "legal" use cases received tasks of receiving and sending multiple settlement offers.
Participants for the "dating" use cases received tasks of receiving and sending match-making offers, and receiving and sending second-date offers.
I tested:
Weather the participants understand the received offers (who are the sides and what is offered).
Whether the participants understand how to act on received offers (accept/reject).
Whether the participants understand the ambiguous nature of two-sided the offers.
Understanding the outcome feedback + what they expect to happen after that.
Weather the participants understand how to make a new offer and how to fill the form.
At the end we had general discussions, as the time allowed. I asked questions like “how did you feel?”, “what did you think?”.
Results - General Impression
Dating
All the dates participants said they used the product, and 2/3 were truly excited by it.
quotes:
About "Matchmaking" offers:
- "It's community-based, really good!"
- "It is amazing, saves a lot of unpleasantness. I and other people who are a bit sensitive - would love to pay for such a site. It is also suitable for a job search."
- "Wow, very nice."
About second date-settlement:
- "Amazing, you did everything to avoid unpleasantness."
- "How smart."
Claims:
The lawyers received the product without special feelings, and so did two participants who had experience with small claims. All claimed they would use the product for their own needs.
One participant, with a body-damage claim experience expressed discomfort and mistrust towards the product and claimed she would not have use it.
Most participants didn’t see the use of dummy offers for them.
quotes:
The participant with the body-damage claim: "When there is a settlement proposal on the table, there is huge excitement, and having dummy offers really hurts the trust."
A lawyer: "I would use it more for technical cases, such as property-damage, which are easy to close without meetings. In body-damage cases people often look for someone to listen to them."
Task Performance Results
Dating
1. Receiving an offer from 3rd party (all subtasks)
2. Offering as a third party
2.1. Understanding how to make a new offer
2.2. Selecting a "third-party offer"
2.3. Form-filling
2.4. Sending
3. Receive offers after the first date
3.1. Understanding the method (real and dummy offers)
3.2. Understanding the feedback
4. Sending offers after the first date
4.1. Making an offer (real)
4.2. Making a dummy offer (including understanding)
Claims (private and professional)
1. Receiving multiple compromise offers
1.1. Realizing the existence of multiple offers
1.2. Understanding the method (real and dummy offers)
1.3. Understanding the feedback
2. Creating compromise offers
2.1. Finding how to start
2.2. Filling the form
2.3. sending
Summary of issues and possible solutions
h. Detailed Design
After analyzing the test results, I made important fixes to the prototype, and fast-tested it on people around me.
Main changes:
On the main screen I clearly separated the offer-cards from one-another and made the “new offer” button more prominent.
Also, to avoid users missing the existence of multiple offers, I decided to show offers side-by-side, on large screens:
I organized the “New offer” form in sections, and added templates for common use-cases:
Feedback for success and failure after offer acceptation were differentiated by color and illustration. Here is how it looks after design:
When I’ve made sure important issues were solved, I started documenting the detailed design for implementation, and working with Inbar, the designer.
During the detailed design stage, and even during implementation, I performed mini-test to make sure everything indeed works for users, and asked for small changes when it was needed.
Project current stage
The product is already online and functional:
https://www.getreallab.com Erez Refaeli, the entrepreneur, is currently promoting the product to potential users .
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