We’ve built a new SaaS (software as a service) product that lets residents report their housing repair needs to their local authority. 居民使用大约需要5分钟. We’ve built this to help local authorities all over the UK improve the housing repairs services they provide to their residents, 同时节省时间和金钱.
我们很高兴能和大家分享. 这是一种全新的东西，与我们之前所做的完全不同. Rather than working with different councils on individual housing repair services, we think it makes much more sense to build one application to address this common need. 我们很想听听你的想法.
We’ve made a video about it, which includes some screen grabs of what it looks like. 看一看:
从我们已经完成的用户研究中获益
The great thing about taking a SaaS approach is that anyone can benefit from the groundwork we’ve already done. 用户研究就是一个很好的例子.
We’ve done heaps of user research to make the product as easy to use as possible. That includes research with community groups representing people with lower digital literacy. 谢谢每一个参加的人. 你让这个产品变得更好了.)
我们使用GOV设计了这个产品.英国服务标准. 作为这项研究的结果, we’ve done other things to make the product as easy to use as possible, 包括尽可能地简化单词.
One thing we’ve tried and decided against is the kind of interface where you show users a picture of a room and ask them to select the object or area where there’s a problem. Though this may sound like an easy way for some people to report a problem, there are accessibility issues with asking users to interact this way – for example, 对于有视觉障碍的人.
The effort we’ve applied to making the product as accessible as possible means that the online service is usable by many more people. 这对他们来说更快更容易, but also frees up your people’s time from answering phone calls and emails to focus more on your priorities.
因为这是一个真正的SaaS产品, 你不需要花时间去理解, 维护或升级产品. 我们会做所有这些.
为什么我们要走SaaS路线
以防你不熟悉软件即服务, 这些应用程序存在于云中, and which are maintained and improved by the provider (in this case: us). They operate on a simple pay-as-you-go basis, and our housing repairs product is no different.
We think a SaaS product makes so much sense for solving housing repair needs. 比起建立新的定制服务，这是一个更便宜的选择, 或者用过时的系统凑合着用.
这对你(当地政府)来说很简单. 因为它是SaaS，你只需要支付一笔固定费用. 没有附加费用或优惠价格. 成本是可以预测的. You don’t need to worry about maintaining it (because we do that bit).
和所有SaaS产品一样, our housing repairs tool is never finished: we’ll go on improving it based on new insights and the feedback we hear from you. 所有人都会同时看到这些更新. There’s no extra cost for those updates – it wouldn’t really be a SaaS product if we did that.
It takes a little time and effort to set up, probably a day or 2, which we’ll help with. After that, updates should just work, with no more tinkering needed. But we have support on hand in case, provided by the people at Made Tech that actually built it.
这还没有结束，我们希望你的帮助
在开发这个产品的过程中，我们已经学到了很多东西. 正如我们提到的, we’ve learned that a lot of the existing assumptions about what makes a good repairs service need challenging based on what the user research shows us.
But at the same time, this product isn’t finished, and it never will be. We’re pretty sure the product as it stands can help councils around the UK, but we want to hear from as many people as possible about how it can be improved to better meet the needs of local authorities and their residents.
One area still up for discussion is the possibility of doing away with logins, 我们在现在的产品中做了什么. 有很多证据支持这一决定, 因为登录造成了进入的障碍，把一些用户拒之门外.
我们听到了一些反对, and the assumptions behind these are potential areas for further user research. 但在这个领域，我们希望听到更多的人的声音, 所以请一定要来和我们聊天.
我们正在考虑的另一个功能是图片上传. There’s some evidence that letting residents snap a quick photo of the problem to upload with their report can help local authorities accurately diagnose the issue and reduce the need for repeat callouts. 我们正在最新一轮的用户研究中测试一个原型.
这是我们的第一款SaaS产品，但请注意这个领域. Head of Research Robin Wyles and team are hard at work in their batcave as we speak.
查看演示
We haven’t gotten around to making a full demo video of the housing repairs product yet, 因为我们做了最后的调整. 但是如果你想看看端到端的旅程, 我们可以给你打个电话做个现场演示. 这样你就可以问任何问题了, or let us know where we’re going wrong (and we’ll put our case to the contrary, 如果有的话!请通过电话给我们打电话 contact为m 在我们的 房屋维修产品页面.
