Overview

Carina is a two-sided marketplace platform connecting individuals covered by Medicaid seeking home care ("consumers") with home care providers ("providers"). Users can create accounts and interact through consumer job posts and provider profiles, facilitating connections between both parties.

Tools

Figma

Adobe Photoshop

Davinci's Resolve

The Challenge

Users on Carina consistently expressed concerns about unresponsive messages within the platform. Past research conducted in 2021, as reported by Kuhn, revealed that over 50% of consumers and providers checked their messages three times a week or less. This pattern led to a significant issue: consumers were not getting the assistance they required, while home care providers were missing out on job opportunities. This situation resulted in a negative user experience and a decline in user engagement with the platform.

My Role

UX designer | researcher

I played a pivotal role in every stage of the design process, encompassing project scope definition, UX research, wireframe creation, and development of high-fidelity prototypes.

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user research

How might we address the issue of unresponsiveness in Carina to increase successful matches between Carina providers and consumers so that they can successfully meet each others’ home care needs?

Users on Carina consistently expressed concerns about unresponsive messages within the platform. Due to this problem consumers are not getting the assistance they required, while home care providers are missing out on job opportunities.

Research 01 - User Surveys

Key Insights

People are generally unresponsive bc it's a way for them to reject the other person w/o being confrontational.
People are more attentive on weekdays, less attentive on weekends.
Online marketplaces with live chat feature have more traffic and have less problems related to unresponsiveness.
Texts are responded to faster, emails are responded to slower.
Elderly: Don't know what certain icons mean.

Research 02 - Market Research

Key Insights

Review system might make users more comfortable with choosing a provider.
Users should see things at a time that makes it easier for them to respond.
Reporting unresponsiveness with a button.
Auto-reply options for certain time periods of unresponsiveness.
Modern messaging platforms have read receipts.
Hiding irrelevant messages can help w/ inbox clutter --> less ghosting.

Research 03 - Survey

If you don’t respond to a message, why do you not respond to the message sent to you?

Research 04 - User Interviews

Voice from interviewees

“

I recently stopped using Carina due to the lack of response or a response was made but then they ghosted and stopped correspondence…

”

“

No one answers me when I reach out to a new potential caregiver. 4x in the last 2 months I have reached out to open a conversation and have never received a response.

”

Persona

How might we enhance the visibility of message notifications for users, ultimately leading to increased message check frequency and a reduction in the number of unresponded messages that fail to result in matches?

We revised our original HMW statement after we gained more insight from primary and secondary research. We dove deeper into a specific subcategory of the problem space. With more context from our initial research, we found that people had issues with notifications. So, we focused our secondary research and survey synthesis more on notifications and how that impacts responsiveness on messaging platforms.

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ideation

2 by 2 brain storming

Rapid ideas from HMW

Down Selection

Task Flow

Wireframes

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usability testing

Validating the Designs

We tested our prototype with 12 people in a span of 3 weeks. We made a script including scenarios asking the user to message someone and change their settings. During the testing sessions, we recorded how users interact with the prototype which helped us find parts to improve.

Feedback and Iterations

Title and subtitle lacks clarity and CTA

We designed this pop-up with the intention of helping users stay updated by turning on their notifications. However, our initial title left users feeling confused and frustrated. To address this, we refined the title to make it more concise and user-friendly.

Improved visual and privacy concerns

User testing revealed that most users only read pop-up titles. We streamlined the content, and improved the visual design.

We later recognized that users not yet consenting to text notifications were overlooked. In the updated design, we disabled the text option, guiding them to consent in the settings.

Unread Message Summary Overhaul

In our initial iteration of the weekly message summary, we introduced a pop-up and a dedicated settings section. However, lengthy pop-ups were often overlooked, and users preferred hands-on experience. So, we removed the pop-up.

We also found a separate section for the unread message summary wasn't feasible due to verification requirements for text notifications. We integrated this feature under 'email me when' and 'text me when' for user convenience.

Design System

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Final Result

Weekly reminder of unread messages

This feature will be accessible in the user's settings. It offers users the choice to receive a summary of all unread message notifications as an extra reminder to respond to them.

Reminder to update notification settings

This feature serves as a reminder to encourage users to enable notifications, ensuring they never miss important messages sent to them.

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Reflections & Next Steps

how to Measure success

Reflections and takeaways

Strengthened my adaptability: Real-world companies have their unique constraints and preferences, which sometimes require me to adjust the design to accommodate their needs.
Further improved communication skills: Working with companies and stakeholders reinforced my clear and effective communication skills. Including listening to their concerns, addressing their requests, and articulating design decisions to foster collaboration.
Reinforced feedback incorporation skills: Through iterative design processes, I ensured that stakeholder input was thoughtfully integrated into the UX design while maintaining a user-focused approach.