QuickFix App Project
Published summer 2020
Last semester at the university in 2020 me and 4 others worked on a complex project in the Project Management course. The task was to come with an app idea, and go through all the crucial steps that Project Management field has to offer.
From Idea Presentation and Pitch, to Value Proposition, Project Charter and High Level Spec, Work Breakdown Structure, creating a CPM and a GANTT chart for the project, together with a Budget and Risk Management strategy really gave us a feeling of how real life projects come to life. Everything ended with an Investor Proposal presentation.
Creating the User Interface of the app wasn’t a requirement, but i felt like it was crucial to get a good understanding of the problem and took the initiative myself.
QuickFix: “A quicker car fixing experience.”
QuickFix is a new way of contacting workshops when issues occur. In Norway and all over the world generally, car crashes and of course internal car issues are happening. Finans Norge shows the amount of damages reported in 2018 was about 911,000 incidents. This excludes the ones that have not been reported, and also excludes internal damages and issues which come over the years.
Today the process of contacting a workshop for your specific issue can be time-consuming. You must search the web for a workshop, scroll through maybe a dozen before you find one that seems to be alright. Then you have to contact them, either by phone or by mail, and not everyone is comfortable with that.
The process of calling can be simple, but they may not answer, they may not have the ability to do what you need, or they may not have any free time available until next week. By mail the process is even longer, and it may end up in the same path as the phone call. It’s frustrating and time-consuming, especially if you are in a rush. This makes people wonder if they even have the time or money to fix the issues at this moment, and leads to postponing the repairs, which further leads to cars breaking down. We think QuickFix could solve some of these issues.
Quickfix is a mobile app that shows a map of workshops around a person, as well as info such as types of services they provide, where they are located, full overview over workshops’ schedules, and reviews of each workshop for users to see what kind of experience others had there. People are in full control, they decide which workshop they want to repair their car at based on prices, location, waiting time, and repair availability. We believe the process of repairing a car will become less frustrating and stressful for people, and possibly even pleasant, prior to how it is at the moment, and this is just one of the two sides which QuickFix handles.
Value Proposition Canvas
We created a Value Proposition for car owners, and considered the jobs they want to achieve, their pains and gains, and how our product solves all of that.
Since the app is supposed to have 2 sides, we created a Value Proposition for the workshops as well, their desires differ significantly from the Car Owners user group.
What features should we include?
When it came to deciding which features to include, we had a pretty clear picture, even before we decided to work on this specific solution.
A map feature was a must. Showing all the nearby workshops, with all the necessary information, such as location, phone number, email, descriptions telling what repairs they do, price lists and operating hours.
Features such as Schedule Appointment and Damage Assessment were the core unique functionality. An ability to see full workshop schedule for yourself in Schedule Appointment feature, and to quickly send a damage assessment to a fitting workshop using pictures and videos made sure to reduce the stress and frustration users usually go through when dealing with car servicing.
App Hierarchy
We created an App Hierarchy for the Car Owner side of the app, what type of flow would make the most sense, after several iterations we landed on something we were happy with.
The same applied for the Workshop side naturally, we needed to understand what structure would make most sense for Workshops.
App Flow
After deciding on the structure and the flow of individual app sides, we needed to create a logical connection and a journey by which the information would travel from one side to the other.
Work Breakdown Structure
We created a WBS to break down all of the major app and project components. That allowed us to to get an overview of the project scope, and work further with things such as Estimations and CPM.
Critical Path
We made a Critical Path to create a visual representation of crucial components and dependencies.
GANTT Chart
The GANTT chart visualized the CPM for us, and created a good overview over the project deliverables.
Design Process
The design process consisted of creating a visual identity for the app; a logo, a color palette, and a fitting typography, while the UI design process started with sketches on an iPad and ended with a fully testable working prototype in Adobe XD.
The logo was inspired by the letter “Q” in the word “Quick” and as a well known symbol of the word “Fix” i used a wrench, and that worked perfectly as a negative space element, also making it look like it has its grip on the line in the letter “Q”.
The colors used in the identity were harmonic shades of blue, symbolizing peace and neutral feel, both in the visual identity and the app UI to reduce people’s stress furthermore. The darker shade and the lighter shade work well on top of each other and create a good contrast, after several iterations i landed on something that was both pleasing and visually functional.
Some of the UI screens were sketched with the Adobe Draw app on iPad. However most of the UI was created using modern trends, common practises and intuition.
Here’s a closer look at some of the first steps that users will be greeted with, simple and friendly onboarding with illustrations from UnDraw, a quick registration process with several options for users to choose from.
This is an overview of the Booking Management feature for workshops. Preview of recent client messages, and an ability to choose any date in the calendar to see all the activity happening that day ensures a helpful experience for car workshops.
The steps of finding a fitting workshop and submitting a damage assessment request are quite simple, user locates a fitting workshop, takes or uploads pictures/videos, adds a short description if necessary and submits, That’s it!
Functions like search and support are also a complete necessity when it comes to user experience. People need more than just one option to discover potential workshops. Support page answers common questions easily, and there is an ability to contact the customer service straight from the app.
Scheduling an appointment is a very straightforward linear process. A couple of simple yes/no questions, choosing a preferred date and time, and adding a description ensures the flexibility for users to give up their car for repair when it’s best for them.
A web application is a complete necessity when it comes to workshops. People working there don’t usually spend time on their phones even though it might seem convenient, it’s not really an acceptable social gesture, that’s why designing a consistent web application with the same functionality was a must.
This is a proof of concept that the bare platform of the app can be applied to different services. Let’s take laundromats for example, you need a map with locations and all necessary info, perhaps an ability to get a quick stain assessment to see if your clothes are washable(?), and to schedule an appointment. A vast majority of businesses fit into this type of category.
Final Thoughts
In the start of the semester I didn’t expect this course to get anywhere near as complex as it did. I think we tackled the workload quite well, the student assistant helped us a lot (thanks Abhishek!), several group members were continuously engaged throughout the project. Frequent deliveries and mandatory assignments really helped us through this as well.
The lectures themselves have been extremely engaging and super helpful, I’ve learned a ton of new field terms, which I surprisingly enough oversaw a lot in the design world before, but now i spot them everywhere; people talking about stakeholders, value proposition, Kanban etc.
When it comes to design I feel like I’ve had a golden opportunity to show what I’m truly capable of. It’s often hard to sit and simulate projects for your portfolio on your own, QuickFix was so much fun to work with, I couldn’t stop testing out different UI ideas for the app functionality.
The team has worked very well together, it was a pleasure to share different visions and simulate a real life project team. I would like to express my gratitude to Kenneth, Stian, Thomas and Andrea!