Ideating a Repair and Remodel Customer Experience Mobile App

  • The Project

    Mobile App UX Design and Research

  • My Role

    UX Design and Research Intern

  • Timeline

    June - August 2022

  • Tools

    Miro, Figma, FigJam

Reece Repair and Remodel

Reece is a lead supplier in the plumbing and HVAC industry globally. Reece was ready to launch a mobile app for their repair and remodel trade customers, to ease the pain points and challenges in website and in-person repair and remodel.

The goal was to digitize repair and remodel shopping experiences on a comprehensive platform covering all branches, while integrating with Reece’s existing systems. MaX is the website currently used by Reece techs and traders to discover and purchase products. We needed to create a mobile app for maX to provide another solution to ease the repair and remodel experience.

UX Research

I conducted some background research to understand the existing maX website users and pain points. I also dug into some customer workflows that take place both at the counter and online. Compiling findings into a presentation for product managers, this gave us justification and an understanding of Reece operations to start ideating a maX mobile app. This information came directly from interviewing PHVAC branch customers and employees.

Lines of Communication

Next, I illustrated the communication process between a branch sales rep and vendors in placing orders for repair and remodel. This was to ensure our app would reflect the order process while speeding up this communication flow. This further helped illustrate the types of information needed at each step of the process.

Ideation Phase

With an understanding of the customer shopping process and user frustrations with the website, we set out to ideating and brainstorming possible solutions. We kept it open ended and worked together to inspire new ideas, no matter how impractical or unrealistic.

Understanding our users

We next researched and spoke directly to our target users to understand exactly who we would be designing for, their goals and frustrations.

R&R customers are often on the go, but the the maX website is difficult to use on a mobile browser. The website currently could not be adapted for a mobile browser. This was the main motivation to create the app. In our interviews we also learned some of the challenges faced by the branch workers in discovering and identifying products in the large, often disorganized warehouse.

User Personas

We created a persona who represents our target user - an HVAC technician who performs repair and remodel jobs and is shopping with Reece for new parts.

Journey Map

Next, I created a journey map based on user interviews conducted with the branch team and customers to illustrate the customer journey.

User Flows

We then created a few user flows to reflect the customer journey through the mobile app. With the journey map and user interviews, we decided to implement an AI scan and AI chat feature for the app to easily allow product discovery and quick access to product information.

Checkout Flow

Camera AI Scan Flow

AI Chat Flow

UX Sketches

Stepping into design, we created rough sketches of each page to visualize ideas for translating the user flows into a user experience. Below are each sketch with useful feedback from our product design manager to take into account for the next version of the design.

Home Page

AI Chat Flow

Scan Flow

Lo-Fi Wireframes

Translating our sketches into low-medium fidelity mockups, I incorporated some early feedback and planned the basic layout of our screens for each user flow. I then received feedback from the design and product teams, along with stakeholders.

Feedback

  • Remove "lists" for maX Mobile phase 1 (out of scope)

  • Create a guest experience

  • Improve search suggestions and results

  • Provide order status to users to relieve branch employees from receiving dozens of calls for updates

Shop & Buy

Shop & Buy

AI Scan

AI Scan

Home

Home

Onboarding

Onboarding

Registration

Registration

This is where my internship ended. The team continued on to design hi-fi wireframes, conduct user testing and iterate.

My role in this internship taught me a lot in how to understand user needs by directly speaking with them, translating those findings into customer journeys and user flows, and reflecting those in design solutions with new features to solve user problems. I also learned how to present to stakeholders and products to justify design decisions, receive feedback, and help guide the product roadmap.

Check out my other projects!