Fring

Fring is where smart companies hire digital freelancers fast and fair.

Post hyper targetted jobs and manage your private shortlist. Fring is free for freelancers. No recruiters.

Overview

Project duration
4 months
My role
UX Researcher

Deliverables
Research Report, Presentation, Research repository, Wireframes
Team
Product Manager, Growth Marketing, Lead UX Designer, Developer

The challenge

Fring's freelancer app, faced a challenge: users weren't sure how to engage post-download. That lead to inactive users that rarely updated their availability or interacted with the app.

Approach

Collaborating closely with the lead product designer my primary responsibility was to reimagine key features of the freelancer app and align user experiences with Fring's vision.

Generative Research:
Conducted interviews to understand in-depth the experience of finding freelance work and product direction.
Evaluative Research:
Performed usability tests and surveys to uncover issues and inform design improvements.
Stakeholder research:
Conducted interviews and team discussions to help establish clear guidelines to work on and understand expectations.
Secondary research: Gathered and analysed existing data from various sources (papers,articles, competitor blogs etc) to inform design decisions and product direction.Created a research repository with open access to all the team.

The results re-shaped the quarter's OKRs and inspired discussions on the product direction: The goal is offering real value to Fring's freelancer community.

Deliverable
Compiled a presentation for the monthly meeting that helped clarify & re-align the teams products expectations and key objectives.

Conducted thorough desk research to explore prior projects, identify key questions, and understand best practices.

Analysed competitors' digital marketplace platforms and value proposition to shape our hypotheses and get insights from similar solutions in the freelance work domain.

Deliverable
Created a research repository in Notion with open access to all company members.

We recruited 4 new app users and 4 existing users to get a better understanding of both cases. In addition, we contacted freelancers via Linkedin Fring App and email.

User Interviews and usability testing

Developed hybrid interview and usability test scripts to gain critical user insights and prepared the tas.
Recognising two primary user categories, separate scripts were tailored: one for new and one for existing users.
The interview script focused on understanding our users motivations, beliefs and context when it comes to freelance work

New users script
Key tasks included assessing ease of use and user sentiments after repeated and first time use.
Our approach aimed for more diverse data. Our goal was to have a perspective from both user categories.

e.g. “search for two companies in the platform: e.g. Shell and Rabobank”

Analysis

Using Miro we conducted a thematic analysis to identify the main findings.

Based on findings, I created a combined persona and user story board, to visualise the users journey and emotional states & help the team understand and empathise with the problem.

Main findings

Collaborating closely with the lead product designer my primary responsibility was to reimagine key features of the freelancer app and align user experiences with Fring's vision.

Freelancers did not understand the value or purpose of Fring app.
FTUE users were very confused of what they can do next and existing users dropped off or were inactive.
App navigation was confusing.
Usability issues like lack of freedom of e.g. searching jobs led to further disengagement or dropouts.

Design suggestions

Collaborating with the Product Manager we prioritised design changes for immediate user experience impact within budget constraints.
Later we revised suggestions based on the team's feedback for the MVP design.

Initiated the ideation process with paper sketches and later transitioned to Figma.

Impact

Strategic Pivot:
Guided Fring's focus towards building a freelance community, led in reshaping quarterly objectives.
User friendly app design:
Reduced Fring's app cognitive load & enhanced usability, aligning with user's mental expectations.

User Mental Model Alignment:
Found discrepancies, leading to strategic UX/UI improvements.
Unique Value Proposition:
Emphasized a "freelancer-first" ethos, differentiating Fring from competitors.

Challenges

Balancing Functionality and Simplicity: Ensuring new features enhance user experience without overwhelming simplicity.
Complex and diverse User Behavior: Deciphering nuanced user needs in a multifaceted freelance platform.

Technical Limitations vs. User Expectations: Aligning user desires with technical constraints effectively.

Key learnings & insights

Matching our users' mental model and goals ensures the app's interface is intuitive e.g. "enable search work feature". If I would do this again I would conduct further quantitative research to triangulate data. Although more time consuming, contextual inquiry would help uncover deeper insights on the context of use.

The app's new version with the implemented changes we suggested was published on November 2022.

*Current app has been updated since but the changes are still there.

Fring App

A cup of tea
with Thea?

About me
Thea is a UX Designer & Researcher with a background in Social Anthropology. She is the happiest when she looks at the world through people's eyes to build delightful products.

Contact
e: theavaxe@icloud.com
t: (+31) 06-47098410

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