Urban is one of Europe's most
prominent wellness startup

Project Type

Urban is one of Europe's most prominent wellness startups

Contribution

eCommerceA/B TestingUsability

TestingUser Interface (UI)

User Experience (UX)

Booking Wellness Prototyping

iOSMobile Applications

User Research

My role

UX Lead

Outcome

Rolled out 100% globally 🎉

Target users

+ 125k Active users

Duration

4 weeks

Visit Mobile Application

Visit Mobile App

Project Overview

Urban is one of Europe's most prominent wellness startups, a marketplace to help you book a wellness session at your home, including massage, beauty, fitness, yoga, nutrition, physiotherapy, and osteopathy.

I was offered to lead the most significant update to the product since its first launch in 2021, which was more than a redesign but an actual rethinking of the experience—adding intelligent features for increasing the repeat bookings, hence the profitability of the business.

The biggest challenge was to be an advocate for both sides of the users—the consumer and the service providers—while making sure the business was also thriving.

Context

I lead the research and design process from zero to the end for many updates to Urban's B2C platform and providers' platform (for both web and app), and corporate/B2B platform (web only). It'd be impossible to speak about all of them here, but I can proudly say my services helped Urban expand from just one to five categories and raise over £15m investment.
My main responsibilities included conducting user interviews, wireframing, UI design, prototyping, and user testing.

Building the trust

The concept of calling a stranger to your home, especially to have a massage, isn't a common thing at all. Hence, at Urban, we started building the trust right from the very first moment you start using the app by telling the users that they're in control and giving the clues for why they can trust us.

Discovery

When I first started working with Urban, there was one service available to book: massages. As of now, there are more than a hundred different types of bookings you can create, hence tackling the discoverability was an important challenge. To achieve that, we conducted researches with hundreds of people to understand what they need to know instantly, and we made sure they could get it without any effort or giving too much thinking.

Scaling the business

Yes, a design should be simple enough, so it doesn't require explanation, but sometimes—especially when you launch a new service—you have to make sure users are not missing the value. That's why when Urban launched fitness services, we made sure users understood what they were paying for. It was fascinating to see the users weren't expecting the app to handle such a big change without changing the user experience they've been familiar with.

Improving conversion

One of the most educating tasks at Urban's redesign was understanding what would make people stop leaving the app when there was only one more 'tap' before they checkout. With extensive research, we redesigned service provider profiles and the checkout page to help people make easier decisions.

Reducing unclarity

One other goal of the design process was to reduce the calls received by the customer support team. After spending a few days with them, it was easy to understand the common reasons that made users had to call them. To help to achieve the goal, I designed features to help people understand what happens next after the booking and during the appointment.

Thinking cross-platform

Although it's well-known that app users are more likely to become loyal customers, we knew that an easy-to-use website was a crucial part of gaining a customer at the first stage. That's why I made sure that the website offers the same simplicity of the app and, at the same time, gives more information for a first-time user.

Although it's well-known that app users are more likely to become loyal customers, we knew that an easy to use website was a crucial part of gaining that customer at the first stage. That's why I made sure that the website offers the same simplicity of the app and gave more information for a first time user at the same time.

Feedback is everything

Urban's success wasn't a coincidence. Constant user interviews and getting feedback is the core of creating a successful business—there's nothing like seeing your users recognize that effort.

The big picture

Designing a marketplace seems simple at the first stage, but when you start diving into different user-profiles and their needs, there are endless possibilities your user would expect your product to work. For example, this flow shows just a one-to-one booking for a fitness service and how it can be bundled with another service. But you also need to make sure that the experience is similar when your user is booking another service with different dynamics and limitations.

* All information in the projects are my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of respective companies. All the projects complies to the NDA