Find a suitable spot to work.
A design sprint of a mobile app that offers a service for remote workers to find good public places to work from
Overview
A mobile application for remote workers to find public places to work in a five-day Google Ventures Design Sprint.
My Role
Lighting Demo
UI Design
Prototyping
Testing
Duration
Five days
Tools
Figma
The Challenge
Work is changing, even more so with the pandemic. Remote work has opened the door to a new approach to working, and in conjunction, technology has exponentially grown. As difficult as it was to transition from 40 (or more) hours a week in an office, to working in a home “office” (and sometimes maybe in pajama bottoms), employees have learned how to establish productivity in their own spaces. However, after months of being in the same work-eat-sleep space, working in public spaces has been favored by a growing population.
Working in a public spot can be amazing: being in a new environment and surrounded by people who aren’t work-related. Or it can be a pain: not finding an outlet when needed, not having enough space to work, having too much background noise, waiting for a table, having spotty wifi… the list goes on. On top of that, searching for a suitable spot in a desired area can be a challenge.
The Solution
PostUp is an app that offers a service for remote workers to find good public places to work from. The search process is quick and allows for personalization based on the users’ wants and needs in a public and remote workspace.
Quickly search for spots in a desired area.
Not only does map view clearly display places to work remotely, but are also color-coded based on current occupancies.
We all like transparency.
Amenities provided by businesses aren’t always the most accurate. View ratings of the amenities by PostUp users to help find the perfect spot to efficiently work.
No one has time to wait around for a seat.
Get information on current occupancy and predicted popular times for each day of the week. Planning visits ahead of time to avoid the wait is paramount to efficiency.
Design Process
PostUp is a new startup where freelancers and remote workers share tips and advice. They recently have seen a lot of feedback and discussion about how to find good public places to work from, and want to tackle this challenge. They brought me on board to run a five-day design sprint to quickly test out a possible solution, while following a few design parameters:
- The solution was to be designed as a mobile app.
- The places that users were to find on the app already exist.
- Users would be charged a monthly fee to access unlimited PostUp information.
In this modified version of a Google Ventures (GV) Design Sprint, I started by understanding the problem, and eventually tested out a potential solution based on the materials provided.
The Google Ventures (GV) 5-Day Design Sprint Process
Day 1: Map
I began by synthesizing research that was previously done by the PostUp team, and found frequent themes and insights. The research consisted of nine user interviews who explained their experience in finding a public place from which to do remote work. By studying the research highlights given, I was able to gather that:
1. searching for a spot to work nearby or in a specific area needs to be quick and efficient.
2. finding a place with amenities that suit their needs is a current challenge.
Information was also provided to create a user persona, which highlighted the behaviors, goals, and frustrations of one type of user.
With an understanding of user goals and frustrations, I was able to define the problem, and turn it into opportunities of design.
How Might We...
improve the search process for remote workers to find a suitable public spot to work at?
inform remote workers of the amenities in each public spot?
assist remote work productivity in public places?
incentivize remote workers to sign up for monthly unlimited PostUp access?
To illustrate how a user would achieve their goal, I mapped out an end-to-end user experience. I identified the user on the left, the goal they would like to achieve using the product on the right, and in between, I filled in the steps in order to achieve that goal.
End-to-end experience map
Day 2: Sketch
Before jumping into sketching out potential solutions, I explored existing products that solve similar design challenges for inspiration by conducting lightning demos.
Yelp
Icons displaying types of businesses as filters on the home screen assists users in their search.
“Nearby and open now” is a great place for users to start quickly browsing through options on the home screen.
List of amenities in each business is helpful information.
Google Maps
Pins in map view show ratings to help users make decisions easier.
Selected pin on the map shows up as a card at the bottom of the screen with photos and basic information.
Popular times for each business is displayed as a graph (days of the week can be shown, as well). Each bar can be tapped to view details of how busy it can get at a certain time.
Airbnb
Map view is clean and “Amenities” filter is clearly at the top of the search bar.
Sheet slide up at the bottom of the map view shows the accommodation options in a list view.
Amenities for accommodations are located below general information. The icons have an inviting, welcoming feel.
Amazon
Products have their own customer reviews, including ratings by feature, as opposed to users having to rely only on what the product advertises.
“Read reviews that mention” is a great way for users to filter through reviews by keywords.
I then sketched possible solutions of my most critical screen using the Crazy 8s method. I decided that the map view was going to be the most critical screen, since users will be searching for a suitable spot to work at in a desired location, with specific amenities in mind (filters).
It was vital that searching for a spot was quick and easy, as many users had mentioned that searching often took too long. Viewing images also took an important part of the search process.
Sketches using the Crazy 8s method
After sketching out some ideas, I created a solution sketch in a three-panel storyboard to show the interaction a user will have before and after the most critical screen.
Before critical screen
Critical screen
After critical screen
I decided to implement some suggestions for users to tap instead of manually searching for a spot by including a “Nearby and Open Now” feature on the home screen (before critical screen). In addition, tapping one of the amenity icons would help users filter through places quickly and efficiently, like finding only pet-friendly options, or spots that had food.
Once a user taps a spot they are interested in, images would be displayed at the top, along with general information, amenities, and ratings of each business (after critical screen). I also included a feature for PostUp users to publicly rate the business’ amenities. During user research, many noted their preferences in amenities which they wished businesses had, such as outlets and reliable wifi signal. However, it’s one thing for businesses to advertise that they have outlets and wifi, but in reality, maybe there were only three accessible outlets in the whole space, and the wifi was extremely slow. In cases like these, I felt amenity ratings would help with accuracy and transparency.
Day 3: Decide
Rather than sharing my ideas with the team on Day 3 of a normal design sprint, I went with my solution sketch and chose the screens to include in my storyboard. Each screen included necessary UI elements for my prototype and usability testing.
Storyboard of my solution sketch
In my storyboard, I also sketched out a solution for when users swipe the sheet slide-up for list view. This would give the option of browsing through businesses and their photos first to save time, and also seeing icons of several amenities provided, and the distance from the user’s location.
I also went into depth on what each business page would consist of, and included current occupancy. I wanted to source this information from Google, mostly for users who had mentioned they wished they knew how busy places were before actually arriving to avoid wasting time.
Day 4: Prototype
Prior to designing my high fidelity screens, I created a quick style guide to be consistent and stick to brand standards. While keeping the brand’s green, I introduced grays with a touch of warmth to evoke the essence of calm productivity (and, well... coffee). I also picked an inviting and easily legible font for users to navigate through the app without any visibility issues.
Style guide
I gathered my storyboard ideas and sketches to create my mockups, which consisted of five screens.
Final Prototype
Once I created my prototype, I also thought about how testing on Day 5 of my sprint was going to be performed.
Day 5: Test
I used the Five-Act interview technique to conduct five remote tests with users who have experience with working or studying in public spots. I did not prompt my users to do any tasks, and instead, simply asked them to navigate through the app and tell me what they wondered, felt, and liked and disliked. Overall, I had a really good response from the users- they all said the process was very simple and easy!
I was very pleased with the reactions I received in user testing. All five users had smooth interactions with no major confusion, and additionally, they all mentioned that the interface was clean and simple. I gathered that the most work needed was in the reviews portion, which I would love to build out in the future.
Conclusion
Next Steps
Based on the feedback provided by the participants from the testing sessions, I found opportunities where I could maximize the user experience of the PostUp app:
1. Incentivize PostUp users when they sign up for monthly access.
From a business standpoint and for great product success, I needed to think of a good incentive that would attract users in order to sign up and pay for monthly access. A potential solution is to give users credit each quarter to use at a business on PostUp of their liking, for instance, to put towards a cup of coffee. Another idea is to offer a feature to reserve a seat (and near an outlet if desired) specifically for PostUp users.
2. Build out the “Reviews” feature.
Having a way to filter and sort by amenity in reviews could help users decide on a spot even quicker. In addition, it would be nice to include images taken and uploaded by PostUp users to build an even bigger community of information.
3. Occupancy to be based on location services of PostUp users.
Once PostUp takes off and is downloaded by a large community, user’s locations would be analyzed for the current occupancy, similar to how Waze detects real-time traffic. This way, PostUp would be able to analyze patterns more accurately for how busy places are in terms of available seats and tables, rather than sourcing Google Maps, which merely states how busy a business is.
4. Remind PostUp users to rate the amenities.
After a user gets directions to a spot they find via PostUp, their location will be used to receive a quiet notification to rate the spot’s amenities once they arrive. Rating amenities would be a very quick task for users to do; they would also have an option to write a full review.
Final Thoughts
This design sprint allowed me to learn how to generate solutions quickly and efficiently. I saw that it was possible for me to create a working prototype in just five days, which was a nice surprise! This was a fun challenge for me, and I look forward to the next sprint. 
Thank you! 
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by Natalie Terada, 2022.
