Designing Fixico's Garage Profile for Scalability and Engagement
August 2024
Overview
Fixico is a digital platform that provides businesses, such as fleet owners and rental services, with the most suitable repair solution by connecting them to a network of top-quality repairers across Europe. It offers an end-to-end, effortless repair experience, smart matchmaking to find the best repair solutions, and real-time insights to support data-driven decision-making.
Problem
The method of gathering information from repair shops for the smart matchmaking mechanism was inefficient, leading to repair shops receiving repair requests that did not match their services and capabilities.
Solution
A new and scalable "Garage Profile" section that centralized matchmaking data and motivated user completion through effective visual design patterns.
Role
Product designer
Tools
Figma, Miro
Key UX highlights
Grounded design decisions in understanding repair shop owners’ time constraints, creating a profile setup process that was approachable and valuable.
Designed a flexible profile structure that could accommodate future service categories without disrupting the user experience.
Delivered a solution that aligned user needs with Fixico’s business goals, reducing irrelevant requests while improving matchmaking accuracy.
Problem space
At the time, information about repair shops was being collected via an online form (outside the Fixico dashboard), which was sent to repair shops via email. This was the only standardized touchpoint to collect information, meaning if information needed to be updated then repair shops had to reach out to the Network Success team.
This process was inefficient for everyone, the repair shops, customers, and the Network Success team, and over time it led to inconsistencies. The biggest pain point was for repair shops because they would receive repair requests that didn’t match their services, wasting their time and potentially losing valuable opportunities. And even though it did not happen frequently, it gave a negative impression of Fixico's credibility. There was a need to address this problem, leading to this HMW question:
How might we gather and centralize comprehensive data about repair shops’ services and capabilities to ensure repair shops only received relevant repair requests?
There was no doubt about the solution of giving repair shops a place in their dashboard to provide this information. So the true challenge was in the design of the section. I will highlight the two biggest challenges I faced when creating the new section, Garage profile. Continue reading to learn more about them, or skip to the solution.
Challenge 1: Capturing a lot of data in a scalable way
The first hurdle was clear: we needed to collect a massive amount of data, but how could we make the process manageable for users? I began by mapping out the various services repair shops currently provided. Then I envisioned how this data would evolve over time. I thought: what if tomorrow Fixico provided maintenance services? This led me to explore multiple design patterns, including expandable cards and tabs. I created low-fidelity designs to visualize the grouping of information and behaviors.
Interact with the prototypes below.
While expandable cards seemed simple and it was a commonly used pattern in the dashboard, I soon realized they reduce scannability as more services were added. Visualize a set of five collapsed cards, actually six cards, to include maintenance services. Expanding one card pushes the cards below further down, limiting the visibility and scannability of the content.
On the other hand, tabs maintain context, keeping all content on a single page. So users do not have to navigate to entirely new screens. Additionally, it reduces cognitive load by breaking content into digestible sections. Users can focus on one category at a time without feeling overwhelmed. Tabs also enhance discoverability, making it easier for users to locate specific information quickly. For example, if a user wanted to update specific information, let's say about the paint booth, they would look at the four different tabs and click ‘Tools & machinery’ and find the questions about the paint booth. Thus, tabs proved to be the strongest design to organize large amounts of data.
Challenge 2: Motivating users to engage
The second challenge was trickier: how do we convince users to fill out a 45-question profile? I empathized with the repair shop owners—busy, skeptical, and likely hesitant to invest time in answering questions that do not lead to an immediate reward. Important to note were the three user groups: (1) current users that have already provided some or all information prior, when they first started with Fixico, (2) current users that have provided the bare minimum, and (3) new users that would be onboarded in the near future. The first and second user groups were prioritized, so that is where I focused my efforts.
Some of these users had been receiving repair requests through Fixico for years already, so convincing them to take the time to answer even 10 questions had to be strategic. To start I did the following:
Minimize the amount of information users need to provide. Instead of requiring users to start from zero and provide answers to all 45 questions, information already provided by them in the past was prefilled in their garage profile.
Visualize users’ progress as they provide information. This made use of the endowed progress effect, which is the principle that people are more likely to achieve a goal if they perceive that they have made progress towards it. Basic information, which Fixico already had and thus was prefilled, counted towards their progress, giving users a perceived head start. This is a pattern used by well-known businesses, such as LinkedIn and Starbucks.
Connect the task to the value. What is in it for the user, to answer the 45 questions? Since a guarantee that repair shops would receive more repair requests was not realistic, the benefit of completing their garage profile needed to be clear and apparent. So, I created three different statements that highlighted the value of completing their garage profile, as part of the progress tracker. The statement highlighted the value and motivated users to continue providing information. To add more dynamism, the statement would change at every 25% mark.
Visually highlight the “Garage profile” from any page of the dashboard. To signal users to click into their user profile a blue chip was shown on the profile icon. Once in their profile, the user would see blue chips in the sections where information was missing, along with a message prompting them to provide the missing information. Essentially the blue chips functioned as breadcrumbs that lead users to sections that require action.
These were design decisions that worked towards introducing the new ‘Garage profile’ section and explaining the significance of answering the questions to current users, in a logical, attainable way. At the strategic level, these decisions worked towards enabling an optimized smart matchmaking mechanism by motivating repair shops to fully complete their garage profile.
Conclusion
Although it seemed like a simple problem to solve…just add a section to the user profile, it was important to consider the information hierarchy of the user profile and the design of the section. The “Garage Profile” is the foundation for the smart matchmaking mechanism. Ensuring that the information architecture was logical and scalable guided repair shops to provide and update information about their services, and in return it enabled the efficacy of the smart matchmaking mechanism. Visualizing users’ progress with a ring and highlighting the value of completing their garage profile was the first step to promote engagement and completion.
Personal learning
While a stakeholder initially pushed for an all-or-nothing approach, I leveraged industry best practices to highlight the risk of overwhelming users. Forcing users to answer all 45 questions would increase cognitive load and risk user frustration and higher drop-off rates. By referencing LinkedIn’s progressive profile setup, I helped shift the discussion toward a more flexible solution. This strengthened my ability to communicate design rationale effectively, a skill I continue to apply when balancing business needs with user experience. This experience reinforced the importance of advocating for user-centric design backed by research.
