Care.com - 'Provider' Diary Study​
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Deliverables: Journey map and User persona(s) for our caregiver demographic
Objective: This study was launched to gain insight on the needs, challenges, and goals of new providers during their first two weeks on the Care.com platform. It was the first longitudinal study of its kind at Care.com.
Result: The results influenced product thinking and assumptions across squads, and a new provider persona was successfully identified and developed.
- 6 female participants, various US states
- All at the beginning of their caregiving employment search
- All were using Care as providers for the first time
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Study set-up:
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Users were recruited through UserTesting.com. After passing through screener instructions, users were linked to a Google Form where they were asked to share their contact information for a follow-up conversation about the diary study. This allowed us some control over the sourcing of participants, and consistent quality in terms of their comfort and familiarity with how to provide productive user feedback.
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A Gmail account was set up to coordinate with users over the course of the study. The daily diaries were submitted using a Google Form that users could access anytime and from any place they wanted. Each time they submitted an entry, their entry would be sent to the Gmail account used for the study.
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Airtable was used to track the qualitative data and user journey that arose over the course of the study. A researcher would need to enter it manually. Since data from multiple sources is coming in every day, sometimes multiple times a day, for at least two weeks, it's imperative to have some way to easily stay on top of data entry.
Study limitations​: Because participants self-report the data, we are restricted in our ability to control bias. These users were also recruited through UserTesting.com, which may have introduced bias in terms of the participants’ technology savviness, familiarity with research, and other environmental factors – additionally, the UT testers were recruited for the study through desktop.
Tracking Data
Deliverables
Key Takeaways
The “career caregiver” persona we identified in the study is passionate about caregiving, brings several skills to the table, and is serious about building a client base.​
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She’s juggling a family and responsibilities of her own. Her schedule and autonomy is important to her, and it’s just as important to her that a job fit into HER life as it is for her to be appealing to possible clients.​
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She’s curious. She’s reading articles on Community, talking to friends who’ve had success on Care, and going out into her community to market herself. She loves the NJNY emails and checks them every day. She wants to stand out and doesn’t want to waste time – her family needs the money.​
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She’s looking for structure. She wants to trust Care.com as an authority on how to build her career. She knows how to be caregiver– now, she also wants to know how to handle the logistics, administrative tasks, and manage her client base.​
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These findings were exciting because they directly challenged so many assumptions in our marketing and branding; our consumer-facing language characterized caregiving as a "summer job" or a "side gig" for students and young adults. The persona beginning to emerge from this study looked a lot different.
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From this exploration, design identified various opportunity areas:
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How might we support caregivers with multiple interests, without having them create separate profiles to do so?​​
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How might we position Premium across touchpoints in a way that resonates more with career caregivers?​
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Since Community articles resonated, how might we integrate content more fully into the product?​
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How might we help caregivers visualize a career ladder, and approach each rung?​
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How might we empower providers to manage "admin" duties and advocate for themselves, as well as find jobs?