Stanley Black & Decker
Surehand
(Formerly Aura)
Overview
Stanley Black & Decker is a Fortune 500 manufacturer of industrial tools and household hardware and provider of security products for a number of industries including construction and oil and gas. Surehand is the discovery-based hiring platform for the non-destructive testing industry that instantly matches employer needs with verified candidate profiles.
Non-destructive testing is a process of analyzing materials for their safety and reliability without causing damage. Though not well-known to other industries, non-destructive testing is widely used in oil & gas, aerospace, aviation, etc. Technicians inspect hundreds of miles of pipelines, for example, to ensure oil isn’t leaking into the ocean and causing irreversible environmental damage.
Challenge
How might we get the right person, on the right job, with the right equipment, at the right place and time, with the right price so that we lead the creation of the equipment economy and enable everyone to work together to make the world safer?
Role
User Research
Information Architect
Experience Designer
Prototyper
Interface Designer
Methods
Personas
Storyboards
Sketching
Wireframes Prototyping
Usability Testing
Tools
Balsamiq
Sketch
Invision
Adobe Illustrator
Keynote
Solution
Incubation Process
A look into Aura from Stanley Black & Decker
Video edited by yours truly
Mach49 works with large corporations to create new ventures through a 3-month incubation process. As the sole product designer for each team, my role is to help lead the client team through the user research process; testing storyboards, low-resolution wireframes, and prototypes with potential customers. With the rest of the Mach49 team, I help each team through the lean development process to create a product that solves the greatest pains and meets the needs of the market.
User Research
Find the Pain
The team conducted 135+ customer interviews in three different forms: pain point, storyboard, and wireframe/prototype interviews. All interviews were created to answer the following questions:
What are the primary challenges in the NDT industry?
Where are there exponential opportunities to solve shared challenges across segments?
Who is the user?
Multiple personas and user journeys were created including asset owners, service providers, and technicians of various levels.
Probe the Pain
We tested value propositions we’ve identified using low fidelity, visual stories.
Interviewees step through three divergent scenarios and give their feedback on the concepts.
Test & Iterate
After the first round of testing, the team narrowed down the customer segments to focus on technicians and service providers. The top concerns for technicians were different from those of service providers, but we proposed a platform that could solve the pain for both segments. Both segments were needed for success of the platform as well, one was looking for talent and a way to manage that talent, the other was looking for work and mentorship.
Key Insights
Service providers were looking for a way to find talent that was verified. This meant trust was key and the current methods of searching for talent didn’t provide ways to know your candidates were trustworthy. Then came the question: how might we create a product that verifies credibility and background info for each candidate?
Competitors like LinkedIn and others weren’t fulfilling the needs of the non-destructive testing industry because qualifications for these jobs involved certifications and a track record of safety training and reliability. Many service providers hired from word of mouth or personal recommendations because they didn’t trust the small amount of info they were receiving from the standard candidate profile.
Wireframes
Test the Experience
Interviewees interacted with three divergent prototypes and gave their feedback on the experience. This part of the process involved mid-fidelity wireframes. Wireframes were showcased in Invision to be presented as clickable prototypes.
After testing various features of a prospective hiring platform, the most successful features were constructed into a ‘kitchen sink’ wireframe that encompassed everything that would be in the MVP.
“Very organized way to put together a team and send off for client review. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” -from customer interview (asset owner)
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Outcome
After hundreds on customer interviews and dozens of iterations, the product was pitched to the venture board within Stanley Black & Decker and the product received full seed funding.
The Aura venture was spun out of the larger corporation and testing continued with pilot customers. The platform was renamed Surehand has gone live!