Helping out
Hooge Heren
Hooge Heren is a new recruitment platform within the central heating systems industry. They help central heating installation companies find mechanics and similarly help individual mechanics find better work.
Brief
Hooge Heren uses specific and personalised social media ads as their recruitment tool to target CV mechanics. They connect them with installation companies based on their profile and preferences.
The founders of Hooge Heren have worked in the central heating industry for many years during which they have built an extensive network. This enabled them to specialise their business wholly on the central heating industry to differentiate themselves from other recruitment companies.
They now want to expand their business and therefore asked me to help transform their landing page into a website.
UI/UX and visual design: Elian Duits
Business Model Canvas
Challenge
Their request for a new website made me realise that it was not necessarily a solution for an existing user problem. The challenge was to convince them to allow me to conduct user research, to see if there weren’t other problems present that would be left unsolved by simply creating a new website.
Insights gained from the research report about the target audience
Narrowing down the target audience’s wants, needs and dislikes
Research
I would have liked to interview the users but the founders were understandably protective of their customers. We did agree that I could send a short survey to a select few users, inquiring about their experience with Hooge Heren.
Additionally, one of the founders provided me with a research report about CV mechanics in the Netherlands conducted by an independent research company to further supplement my research.
This is where I discovered where and what the problem from the users’ point of view is
My idea of how we could improve the user experience
Analysis
From my user research I drew two conclusions about the target audience.
First, getting work as a mechanic in the central heating industry is all about trust and transparency as most mechanics build up a business network through their social circle.
Second, the customers of Hooge Heren were very satisfied with the results but did have some frustrations about the lack of communication during the process. After responding to the ad and the first call, they were not kept informed of the next steps.
This gave me an idea of how we could improve their user journey and thus create a more UX focused design.
Wireframes for the website
Wireframes of the Status Checker
Solutions
There were two different solutions I decided to present to Hooge Heren.
Website: Create a website as per their request but with an emphasis on transparency. Since trust is a core value of the target audience, I wanted to make it apparent who Hooge Heren are, what they’re about and what their values are. To achieve this, the website should contain visual representations explaining their business model in a simple way. Furthermore, the About Us page should be about the background of the founders and their values through a Mission and Vision statement.
Status Checker: To improve Hooge Heren’s user experience I wanted to create an additional tool to take away the main user frustration. My idea was to create a Status Checker with which a new user is kept informed of every step during the process. Thereby improving Hooge Heren’s flow and communication.
The Hooge Heren Website
The Status Checker
