Driving adoption among Service Providers with lower digital fluency
CLIENT
Kandua
PLATFORM
Mobile
YEAR
2022 - 2025
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
RESPONSIBILITIES
User research
Problem framing
Design direction
Product design
When we launched Kandua’s business tools for Service Providers, the goal was to help them move to a digital way of working.
On flagship product – Quotes and Invoices – promised to help them run their businesses better. But in reality, very few used it.
Over the next three years, I led the research and iterations to improve this tool.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Kandua.
Evolution of Quoting tool from 2022 (left) to 2025 (right)
My role
I led the redesign of the Quote and Invoice tool for Service Providers from mid-2022 to mid-2025. At the time, the tool had just launched to a small beta group, and I was tasked with improving the experience and driving adoption.
THE CHALLENGE
What job does the tool do?
I started by analysing existing analytics, conducting usability testing with regular users, and interviewing churned users. The goal was to leverage the Jobs To Be Done framework to uncover the underlying motivation so we could focus on effective behavioural levers to drive adoption.
Service Providers (Pros) were mainly using our mobile app because they wanted more customers.
There was no real push; most Pros weren’t actively looking for a new quoting solution.
The pull was the PDF the Quote tool generated. It looked professional, customers noticed it, and Pros loved that.
But using the tool consistently was challenging.
When the process felt too demanding, they often defaulted back to their notebooks.
For example, session recordings revealed that Service Providers often spent around 30 minutes creating a single quote, with most of that time going into adding line items. Many started a quote, got stuck at that step, and eventually dropped off.
Service Providers spent an average of 10 - 20 minutes adding line items to quotes.
Why were Pros struggling?
Many of our Service Providers were older, often above 35, and not as digitally fluent, which made the tool challenging whenever they got stuck.
Even our more regular users faced similar friction at times, though they were generally better at finding their way around.
The issue wasn’t the tool itself. Less digitally fluent users simply had lower confidence navigating digital products — especially productivity tools — and often found them intimidating.
The opportunity
Confidence in using digital tools is built over time through repeated exposure and practice. The opportunity was to highlight the professionalism the tool offered to encourage more Pros to adopt it and then guide them through their first and repeated use so they could gradually build confidence.
Design principles
From this, I established principles that guided design decisions:
First, we needed to guide Pros through the process so they did not get stuck.
Second, we had to communicate the value early and lean into professionalism because that was the benefit that resonated most.
Third, we had to make the experience lighter and reduce friction wherever possible.
THE REDESIGN
Making quote & invoice creation feel effortless
I designed a tour that surfaced the key benefits early and guided Pros step-by-step through their first quote.
The first messages they saw spoke to looking more professional to clients.
We also made a few usability fixes. For example, we updated button labels to better match Pros' mental model.
I introduced an updated design language to unify the visual experience. Due to timing constraints, the new system could not be fully extended to the quoting tool for this launch.
The outcome
The changes led to a 12% rise in weekly active usage.
For confidentiality reasons I have omitted the actual values for this metric.
Pros still spent a significant amount of time adding line items, and I learned that some parts of a process will naturally take time — especially for users who are still building new digital habits.
Not everything needs to be solved by making it faster. Sometimes, it is about making it feel less overwhelming.
Further iterations
A few months later, I had the opportunity to redesign the entire feature. This time, the focus shifted to more established Service Providers. They needed a richer experience with more control.
Mental model nuances
In a research I led, we found that established Service Providers already followed the ideal quoting and invoicing process, while less experienced Pros tended to use the two interchangeably.
Established Pros handled everything from taxation to detailed documentation, so we needed to be opinionated in our design rather than simply adapting to existing mental models.
Our solution was to design for the established Pros’ workflow and guide less experienced Service Providers toward the ideal process.
Co-creating with experts
As a result of the nuances we needed to account for, I involved the finance team to ensure VAT calculations were accurate and that the quote output aligned with industry expectations.
I also worked closely with the support team who spoke with Pros daily and helped us understand where confusion still existed. And a small group of Pros was involved in ongoing feedback sessions.
Their feedback shaped a lot of the smaller decisions that made the experience feel natural.
THE RESULT
Introducing Quote modes & automated Invoices
We introduced two quote modes:
One tailored for less established Service Providers, who did smaller jobs and had a simpler workflow. They typically wrote a total amount and shared it with customers via WhatsApp.
Another designed for more established Pros who required advanced features such as VAT, discounts, and markup.
Automating invoices
The system also automated deposit and balance invoices to reduce repetitive work for Pros.
The impact
At the time of writing, the improved experience had only rolled out to a subset of Pros, but early signals were encouraging.
Time spent on line items did increase, but that was expected because creating detailed, professional quotes naturally takes more effort. The goal was no longer to make the process instantaneous. It was to make it clear, guided, and meaningfully better than pen and paper.
