Freelancing is a great opportunity if you want to have a flexible schedule, freedom to work from anywhere and liberty to decide what projects you want to take. As much appealing it sounds, there are few things you need to know in order to become a successful freelancer. Our ultimate guide will be very valuable for beginners in terms of finding some useful tips and hacks.

How to start freelancing: 6 tips for beginners

It’s never easy to be a beginner, but everyone has to start somewhere. Every successful professional in the world started where you are now. You do, however, have the benefit of a ready-made, ultimate guide on how to start freelancing and precise steps to follow.

1. Start with part-time freelance jobs

It's hardly news that the most difficult aspect of freelancing is getting started. You most likely want to quit your normal work and become independent immediately, but still have an income. It's not as simple as it seems, because the work of a freelancer is heavily dependent on your personal brand and relationships you built. All of this takes time, so the best thing you can do at the beginning is to have some part-time freelance jobs and small side projects. It will allow you to establish yourself as an independent specialist while yet maintaining a cash flow.

2. Define your assets and sell them

You need to understand your most valuable assets as a freelancer and how much you will charge for your work. You sell the clients your time, knowledge and experience. Without a doubt, your hard skills are essential here, but don’t forget that customers are individuals as well. The way you approach them is also important. As a freelancer, you have to be an excellent communicator and seller. If you’re not sure what your strengths are or how to develop them, you can utilize an online tool – CliftonStrenghts Assessment – often known as the Gallup Test. It might help you to determine how to improve your career depending on soft talents you have.

The time is valuable. You know things clients don’t know, and that’s what you charge them for. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

3. Use connections you have

Do a little research to see if someone in your circle needs assistance. Find a person who knows you and reach out to them. Also, don’t be afraid of posting on LinkedIn. It’s often undervalued, yet it may turn out to be an excellent approach to find a work opportunity. Even if people from your network are not seeking for a freelancer, they might share it further. Because of the power of networking, about 85% of job offers aren’t even listed. Take your chance and put yourself one step ahead. You can also use 3 tips from our certified experts to find out more how to find a freelance work and get more clients.

4. Specialize in a certain area

By doing everything at once, you will probably never become an expert. In order to achieve that, first you need to focus on one area of specialization and then move to another one. Also, when customers look for a professional, they usually search for someone to fix a particular problem. That should be a hint for you to concentrate on a narrow expertise.

Start with platforms (or software) you like and feel comfortable with. I spent a lot of time specializing in many platforms, and I lost a lot of time on that. For example, you show on your LinkedIn profile that you are an expert on Pipedrive and Asana. So, that is what you’re going to sell and focus on that. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

5. Develop your skills

Once you’re in the game, it doesn’t mean you have to win every competition. Technology is developing, software is evolving, and customer demands are changing on a daily basis. You need to be up-to-date and constantly improve your skills. There’s always something new to learn, and the more you know, the more issues you can solve for your clients. Join communities, attend business events, take courses, read news on industry trends, and most importantly – listen to your customers.

There’s always learning. There is a constant learning process we have to go through to understand new functionalities and stay updated. I join a lot of conferences because I want to understand market gaps and what I have to learn. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

6. Build your personal brand online

Update all professional profiles and publish your experience over there. Customers always want to see projects you delivered first.

Websites and platform where you can share your experience:

• LinkedIn
• GitHub
• Behance
• Stack Overflow
• your portfolio website

SoftwareSupp also gives the opportunity to build a personal brand and showcase your best projects. If you are a registered network member, you get this extra space online, where you can promote your freelancing services.

Publish your experience on expert communities and platforms like SoftwareSupp. Join the affiliates partnerships and start from there. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

Treat the online space like it was your portfolio when applying for a job. The way you introduce your work says a lot about you as a freelancer. So put a lot of thought and attention into how you demonstrate and describe it.

6. Find a perfect network

Searching for a job can be frustrating for freelancers and clients. Every day and every hour, there are hundreds of offers published online. Using many communities and platforms to promote your services may increase your exposure, but it will certainly consume a lot of time. In fact, the time is what you sell, so focus more on quality not a quantity. Choose one or two platforms where you feel the most comfortable and begin there.

If you are a beginner freelancer, but you are a professional in your field, you might be interested in joining SoftwareSupp. We are an elite network of freelancers delivering top-quality services. You can register, get certified and have access to work opportunities from all around the world.

Effective communication: 3 rules how to talk to freelance clients

The golden rule of a successful deal is a communication. If you don’t set up the goal clear, you might end up with the project your client doesn’t want, and you just spent a few days working on it. To avoid it and save your valuable time, follow these 5 tips from experienced freelancers. Make it a work habit and get benefits from the effective communication between you and clients.

1. Invest your time to build trust

There is a lot of pre-sales job that you need to do. You need to invest your time, because after the first call you probably won’t get a project. Maybe after two or three meetings, you receive an actual offer. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

Compare your freelancing services to those in another industry. When you walk into a luxurious store, they ask you many questions to find the finest product for your needs. You probably remember at least one situation, when the cashier was very attentive, suggesting different solutions and after that you didn’t want to go anywhere else. Try to apply this idea onto your services and build trust with customers.

The scope is really important, but most of the time I work on requirements gathering. I write down the scope and give it to clients because they really don’t want to invest their time in preparing it. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

2. Talk in details

Make sure your clients understand everything you’re going to do. Explaining might take more time at the beginning of the project, but you will save it later. Talk in details about what they struggle with to understand what they really need. Establish goals and describe what exactly you’re going to do and why.

Sometimes I have to explain things to customers in the most detailed way possible to make sure they understand what’s the scope of the work and that I’m not going to do anything extra beyond that. Otherwise, the project might keep on extending. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

Also, estimate the time of the whole project and each particular task. By doing so, you avoid a situation in which your client might leave unhappy or unwilling to pay once the job is done.

We give the customers terms and conditions, because in general freelancers don’t have any regulations. Clients assume we will do everything they ask for, but that's not the case. There have to be clearly defined terms of what we’re going to work on. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

3. Create a detailed scope of the project

You need to scope the job you’re going to do very well. Sometimes the person that contacts you, isn’t ready for that, so in that case write down everything about the project or define the goal. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

The scope of the project is more than just an outline of main goals or tasks. Consider it a contract you’d sign with the customer. A detailed scope saves you time and avoids situations when the client expects you to do something you didn’t talk about before. Moreover, it shows the customer that you are the professional who knows what is doing. Remember that clients are not experts, and they don’t need to be – that’s why they hire you.

If the scope is not there, it’s very difficult to get the job done, because when you’re halfway done the client might come and change things. It’s better to establish what is going to be done at the beginning because it’s much easier later. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

How to find more freelance clients

You might wonder where to find your new freelance clients and how to contact potential customers to make a good impression. Even as a more experienced professional, who already made some contacts, probably the worst thing to do is to stop looking for opportunities to grow. There are cases when cross-selling or up-selling are not going to work for you, and that’s why you need to think how to successfully develop your customer base.

1. Use your network and get a recommendation

They say go big or go home. However, in this case, before you go big – start with people you already know. For example, friends you made in college, former employers or colleagues from your past jobs. You never know, maybe they are looking for someone to hire, or they know someone else that offers a freelance work. Also, don’t be afraid of asking. Some clients don’t even realize there is a way to improve their work. Be one step ahead and come up with an idea how to help them grow their business.

“First find a person who knows you and try to do the first implementation, build trust and the sale is going to come.” – Carla Rodriguez, Hubspot & Pipedrive CRM partner

2. Build relationships

Go slowly but surely. Don’t forget to be persistent and patient. It takes time to grow a freelance clients base and build trust. In the end, it’s all about relationships. Happy clients will come back and probably recommend you to other people.

“Some people say freelancing is awesome – it is. But it’s also difficult because you need to keep on finding your clients all the time. Sometimes you are very busy delivering, and you’re not haunting or talking to new clients. There’s a point you struggle because you don’t see a cashflow.” – Carla Rodriguez, Hubspot & Pipedrive CRM partner

“It took about 8 months for me to build a client base and work from there. Right now, it’s been almost a year and a half and I have a set of clients that I regularly work with.” – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

3. Use platforms and expert communities

If you want to get more freelance clients, go where you can find other freelancers and experts. Engage, share your experience and knowledge, show your projects and ask for opinions. There are platforms like SoftwareSupp that can connect you with a customer or expert communities, for example on Facebook, where you can also find clients looking for an answer for their problem.

“SoftwareSupp has been very helpful with finding clients. I’m not doing marketing by myself, and I’m actually not spending time on finding projects, but still there are projects coming.” – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

“The most difficult part is to start the freelance with a client. Platforms like SoftwareSupp allow new people to start. They don’t have to quit their job, they can have a fixed amount of money and new projects on the side.” – Carla Rodriguez, Hubspot & Pipedrive CRM partner

Clients’ point of view  – customer’s pain points you should know about

To find freelance work opportunities and get more clients, try to put yourself in their position. If you know better what customers are looking for and what are market gaps, it will be easier for you to outstand from other freelancers.

Clients very often don’t have enough time to look for freelancers in various places. They are busy with developing their business, and they want to hire experts on-demand for short-term projects as fast as possible.

Sometimes when customers look for professionals to hire, they are sent away because of the long waiting time. That’s why they often go for platforms and websites that offer a freelancers’ base full of experts ready to start working. For example, SoftwareSupp allows a client to publish the project and wait until the best, most matching, certified freelancer is assigned to it.

Let’s be honest, who’s not scared with trusting people met online, especially when money is involved. Seeing that customers are careful when choosing a freelancer to work with, use platforms that allow to verify your identity. Also, make sure that all your professional profiles, for example LinkedIn account, are transparent, easy to view, and they demonstrate your skills.

How to increase productivity as a freelancer

When you’re a full-time freelancer with regular customers, it’s time to think how to boost your efficiency, work smarter and better. Below you will find 3 hacks from experienced CRM freelancers on how to improve your work and stay motivated.

1. Hire another freelancer

You may be wondering why you should hire and pay another freelancer, but the answer is actually rather simple. Hiring an assistant, accountant, lawyer or other professional can help you save time and keep clients loyal. There are cases when the customer may ask you to do something you don’t feel specialized enough in, yet it’s still worth to invest in hiring someone else than deny the client.

Sometimes I hire other freelancers that I know, or I go to some platforms to find them. If my client wants something I don’t know how to do, I don’t want to lose them, so I hire another freelancer to work with me. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

You need a project management view. That’s why I hired a Project Management Freelancer to work with me. You need to be organized because sometimes clients don’t have a knowledge, they ask questions on the way you’re doing the project and that’s when you lose the time and money. – Carla Rodriguez, HubSpot & Pipedrive CRM partner

2. Keep a work-life balance

When you are self-employed, it’s extremely difficult to set limits and respect them. As a freelancer, you work for your own success, but remember that maintaining a good work-life balance makes you more effective and motivated to do your job well. Spending most of your time at work can lead to frustration, burnout, and even health problems. To avoid this, pursue your interests, spend time with your loved ones, take care of your condition and don’t forget to go offline from time to time.

Every 25 minutes I take a break and then go back to work. I don’t work on weekends. That’s a strict no-no. If I had to work on the weekend, that would only be for the customer that is not available to meet during the week. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

3. Take breaks

You might not believe, but actually breaks increase your productivity and professionals know about it very well. Usually, it’s recommended to take a break every 60 minutes, but you need to figure out what suits you best. Sometimes when you feel the flow you can work for a few hours straight, but otherwise don’t forget to move a little, go on the fresh air or take a nap if you need it. As a freelancer, you don’t have core hours, but you certainly need to set some rules.

Once I finish a call, I always take at least a 15-minute break for myself and those who are around me. I make sure I have enough time for lunch breaks with family. That’s what I’m very particular about. – Divya Sundaraju, Zoho CRM Admin

4. Don’t waste your time and use reliable platforms

There are many websites with job offers and platforms that connect freelancers with customers. It’s usually very time-consuming to actually find a project and start working on it. First you need to browse through hundreds of work opportunities, send offers to clients, wait for the reply and then proceed with next steps that will eventually lead to get hired.

SoftwareSupp saves your time and energy by matching your expert profile with the project and customer that is looking exactly for a person like you. ‍

‍Google Tag Manager, or shortly saying GTM, is a free management system that allows to track activity across your website or app. It’s easy to install, control and change various data-tracking codes. Using it can provide you insights that can help to avoid bugs, improve the customer’s journey and boost your online store’s efficiency.

Adding Google Tag Manager to Shopify checkout - project’s details

The goal of the project: Adding Google Tag Manager to the Shopify checkout page and order confirmation page, so it allows Google Ads conversion tracking

Project’s scope:

• Testing the tag installation
• To confirm checkout pages to track
• To report what Google Tag Manager events to add
• Monitoring Google Tag Manager for 3 days
• To add GTM to the Shopify checkout page

Project time: 7 hours

“I have developed 500+ websites for individuals​,​ small or medium companies​,​ and large corporations across the globe. What I most enjoy about my work is helping people to craft the online presence of their business. The creative challenge​,​ together with the technical challenge​,​ is very rewarding.” Mark Patena, SoftwareSupp Freelancer

What are the benefits of using Google Tag Manager

• it can improve your site speed
• you get access to a preview mode that is useful for testing and debugging
• it provides faster implementation of new features
• you have a full confidence in the data you collect
• it’s a free, quick and easy tag deployment process, for example in AdWords Conversion Tracking, AdWords Remarketing and Google Analytics

Google Tag Manager integration to track conversions

“Our Google Tag Manager is correctly working on the website​,​ however it doesn't work in checkout.” - Oakywood, the Client

The client was seeking for some assistance on the flow of their Google Tag Manager. For some reason, the tag didn’t reach the checkout page. I first checked the Google Tag inside Shopify and I found several duplicate tags which were outdated. On the front-end, one necessary tag was running. However, upon transitioning to the actual checkout page, the tag was gone. Oakywood provided me a new tag they wanted to use, so I could remove the other one. The fact that they use Shopify Plus, gave me the extra privilege to modify the current checkout.liquid template.

A short guide how to add Google Tag Manager to Shopify Plus store

1. First, make sure you have access to checkout.liquid file. If, for any reason, you don’t have access to this file in your theme code – contact Shopify Plus Support to get it.
2. Once you have it, use Shopify’s integration for Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel instead of using them with Google Tag Manager. 
3. Copy the code snippets that are provided by Google Tag Manager into your theme.liquid and checkout.liquid the files.

New global site tag – project's result

A tag is a snippet of code that usually is designed to send information from the website to a third party, such like Google Analytics or Google Ads. In this project, an approach to the best Shopify practice has been implemented up to the order confirmation page. It took 3 days to properly assess and test the new global site tag (gtag.js). After that, we officially got the confirmation that the tracking is working and data being tracked are sending correct values.

“Businesses with well-defined processes and great software run smoothly, grow quickly, and are FUN to work for.”

Tim Little, SoftwareSupp Freelancer

Project scope 

• Track Education program, eligibility, signup and enrollment for hundreds of stores and thousands of potential students. 
• Provide inter-company workspace to manage store and student contacts and workflows. 
• The client needed an expert to set up a streamlined system from the beginning. Since there were dozens of individuals involved, multiple companies and thousands of data points it was crucial to get the right system setup from the beginning. The client utilized an expert in Monday.com to ensure the foundation of the system was setup correctly, and to add small customizations, robust integrations and excellent product / system support and training for all their users

Skills used

‍Business Process Analysis, Monday.com Board & Automations setup, Integromat Integrations, API Integrations, Requirement Definition & Refinement, Google Sheets Integrations & Automations 

Project Success

• This project was an amazing use-case for monday.com in setting up robust marketing programs that can be duplicated to multiple divisions within a single company. 
• The challenge of so many data-points, multiple legal entities, data-collection & workflow tracking was handled excellently by monday.com features and capabilities. 
• The need to collect student data from hundreds of contacts was handled through google sheets and automatically syncd to monday.com This saved dozens of hours of duplicate data entry and proved to be a robust and effective way to get student data into the system.

Project’s timing

• 2 week turnaround for first program 
• 4 week iterative improvement 
• Manage sales efforts
• Automated Emails with dynamic customer information
• Automated spreadsheet creation for third-party data entry
• Automated integration between spreadsheets and monday.com contacts
• Manage company contacts 
• Integration with Hubspot 
• KPI Reporting across Divisions, Regions and Sales Reps
• List of expert’s tasks done for the project to complete and information about software/integration

Initial Deliverables

• Upload the store list
• Building the Store Engagement Dashboard (as per the outline in the attached document-Dashboard 1)
• Build the Traineeship Dashboard (link to stores)
• Automatically Create Google Sheets for each store staff
• KPI Dashboards Round 1
• Provide Sigma & Gateway reps access to relevant boards / reports
• Formula for assigning dollar values based on hourly rate
• Webform Integration to update Store info on submit
• Hubspot & Monday ongoing store sync for Stores
• Automated Email from Sigma Contact Status
• Integromat Scenario to watch All Google sheets and update Monday.com
  

Follow-up deliverables

• Checksum for email sending (set status to email sent when it is sent)
• CWCF Reporting
• Traineeship Automation Updates
• VHDHR Dashboard in for company/traineeships
• West End Wholelife store didn't mark as 'ready for call'
• Some automated emails not sent when sigma contact status updated to 'Contacted-Proceeding'
• Webform submissions marking stores as 'Contacted-Proceeding' - should mark as 'Ready For Call'
• Update Web form submission to match database with leading '0'
• Add 'ACCOUNT ID' from spreadsheet to monday and webform integration
• Sync Hubspot changes to Monday.com For Store/company updates
• Update Store Spreadsheets to add 'Job Title' column
• Modify Spreadsheet link to go straight to google sheets
• Update Email Address Sync to Hubspot for stores
• Date Last Contacted
• Store List
• Hubspot & Monday ongoing sync for Traineeship Board

Summary 

Created a dashboard for 2 different companies to reach out to their prospective customer list of 500+ stores. Set up ongoing integration to collect and store employee information in a central location for all of the 500 stores. Built live financial and contact KPI reporting dashboards. Set up integration between Hubspo, monday.com and google sheets. 

• Central database for managing contact/reach out efforts for prospective customers 
• Removed duplicate data entry for employee contact information 
• Established a template approach to enable future similar sales programs and efforts. 
• Dozens of hours saved from automated emails, integrations and centralized database. 
• Over 500 Company reach outs handled
• Thousands of Student information gathered and synced to training & signup programs
• Cross Company Collaboration
• 5 programs managed within monday.com across 5 different large clients 
• Enabled sales program worth millions of dollars of potential revenue and subsidies.
• KPI Reporting across each program and region including: Number of Stores, Number of contacts, Number of Students, Potential Revenue charts
• Reports for each program broken down by various metrics: location, store, Category etc.

Nowadays amount of data which companies are producing on a daily basis is overwhelming. Data used wisely provides information for making strategic decisions and run better businesses. Datas provide insights which helps answering business questions: what actions should be taken, what problems should be solved and how. More and more companies becomes data-driven organizations and decides of implementation of reports and dashboards which visually shows company performance at one glance.

Visual representation of data helps to understand data quickly and demonstrate important relationships between two or more data sources, how one data point correlates to another. Automation of dashboards saves a lot of time and help companies to run business on a daily basis. Dashboards can have different purposes like help to show trends, pain points or help operational employees in a daily tasks.

Ewelina Pietryga, Business Intelligence Expert

Awesome experience! SoftwareSupp Freelancer did everything we were looking to do. Now we have a complex Business Intelligence Dashboard visualizing all of our data in one place.

Matt Thomes, General Manager at Snap Construction

Companies are looking after experts in area of business intelligence outside of their own organization because outsourcing have a lot of positive aspects like access to high-class experts experienced in particular area/tool and in relatively quick timeframe projects are delivered. Experts are implementing solutions according to the best practices they learned through experience by participating in many projects in different organizations. Subject matter experts who worked in many organizations look at the problems/projects in bigger perspective than experts who work in one organization. 

Delivering business intelligence solutions like automated dashboards and reports is easy at first sight but you should ask yourself, are you doing it right? We should stress out that presenting data properly is as important as ever because it can give not correct message still using the same dataset as dashboards well-designed should convey information. As we start with creation of the dashboard we check first if data is easy accessible and what size of company its. Big companies can already have big data and ready data warehouses prepared and to be used but on the other hand we have small size businesses where data warehouses are not needed and dashboards can already access the data sources directly and its has no impact for end-users in terms dashboard responsiveness.

Business intelligence and data visualization project

Snap Construction company uses Pipedrive CRM to look after project deals and now they want to see performance of deals, average job size, close ratio by sales people, deal source and category in one view in the online dashboard. Pipedrive offers dashboards but the possibility is limited. Company decides to outsource that because of a lack of specialists in their own company.

Project scope:

1. Understand client requirements and preference of BI tool.
2. Matching client needs with available tools and integrations.
3. Creating first version of the dashboard and sharing with client.
4. Feedback and adjusting the dashboard.
5. Closing the project.

Skills used: technical knowledge of BI tools on the market which will suit customer needs, I do not want to offer BI tool where a maintenance and license is high in terms of costs. In this case there was no dashboard online used and no preference so therefore I suggested Google Data Studio because: no cost, ease of implementation, online BI tool, ease of integration with Pipedrive through 3rd party connectors.

Business knowledge: understand the topic of the dashboard.

Project's challenges

I am treating projects as unique as each client is different and always checking requirements to understand if we are on the same page before starting with the project. Many clients use different terminology and sometimes metrics should be adjusted per their requirements to meet their needs. It's important that me and client speak the same language in terms of if we understand each other. During a call it was found out that some exclusions should be considered as how they mark unqualified deals, it was not defined in the project scope. My mission is not only to deliver the dashboard but also leave a client happy so he will be returning customer and keep him satisfied. 

For data integration I have used Dataddo which will allow us automatically pipe data from Pipedrive to Google Data Studio per schedule. 

Connecting to created flow in Google Data Studio

Created a dashboard in Google Data Studio - first version:

Challenges:

• Dataset issue - working with Dataddo to add custom field: Job Type from Deals
• Duplicated deals
• Finalizing pricing with them (aiming to pay 35$/pm). Dataddo charges 35$/pm per source and in this case there are 2: Deals and Stages 
• Asked to add dataset since 2017 even though Dataddo offers 1 year of data (because of small dataset)
  

Suggestion for inexperienced:

• Understand clients needs very well
• Always ask questions to customer if you unsure, we want to satisfy the clients
• Show progress to client even the dashboard is not finished, not wait until the end to hear that its not what he was looking for because you and client will be disappointed

Client will save money because project was delivered in relative short timeline according to the requirements.

The best options was shared and proposed so client will save money.

Dashboard should show performance of deals and show at which stage company is losing the deals and see how effective they are so it should show the real problem and maybe the strategy how they operate should be changed or maybe some improvements in the process added.

User Experience analysis of the quality and optimization enables further development and opens the possibility of meeting the requirements of even the most demanding clients. The purpose of the application is to meet the customer's expectations and give them the option to reach out companies and their services easier. Satisfied with the process, the customer more readily returns and makes a purchase.

The redesign process aims to improve the overall quality of the app, so users can order food faster and more conveniently. The McDonald’s application was analyzed across different markets in Europe, and it comes out that its features vary depending on the country. ‍

As the former UX Designer who created a mobile app for MIT awarded start-up from Madrid and former UX Researcher at the best research institute in Italy​,​ my goal is to leverage 4 years of experience to help you succeed with optimizing the UX of your products.


Project design: analysis of the user's perspective and app’s features

App functionality and user’s needs

Using the McDonald’s application, users can get familiar with available promotions and new offers. They can also collect loyalty points and use them later to pay. Depending on customers’ needs and the market, they can check for locations that meet their specific criteria. For example, Belgium users can charge their electric cars during the meal.

Current app features 

• Promotions – special offers of new products, loyalty programs.
• Food details – ingredients, nutrition information, possible allergens.
• Filtering and navigation – restaurant locations, available facilities, etc.

User problems

1. Full access to signed-up users only – browsing coupons available only after creating an account (macro-design choice of app developers for data analysis and content personalization purposes).
2. Price transparency – prices of products do not always appear.
3. No direct ordering system – the lack of possibility to order food via the app nor a delivery option. 
   

Based on user’s issues, UX design analysis is able to fix them by meeting customer’s needs, such as: to save money, explore food quickly and easy, find a suitable restaurant and get to know about the new menu.

User Experience analysis presentation and evaluation

According to reviews, McDonald’s app is number one for the category of Food & Drinks. At the same time it has a drastically low ranking: 2.5/5 based on more than 1000 reviews. 

Feature 1: Language and location selection

Issues include excise when changing language (multiple clicks) and as a result a growing frustration of customers when no choice is available. Location selection causes possible slips using the drop-down menu.

Feature 2: Filtering for facilities

First step of filtering redesign includes added buttons which give the opportunity to reduce slips possibility and get prominent feedback from the system. The secondary redesign of added parameters would be a scrollable list, optimal for multiple characteristics.

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Feature 3: Current product selection

The unstructured layout can cause following problems: a less responsive app, growing customer’s irritation and eventually inconsistent data that software developers receive. The disorganized product selection page consists of: irrelevant logo and menu button location, proximity of icons and not visible borders between product choice that generate possible slips. Furthermore, there are features that do not redirect to any content.

Feature 4: Landing page

The action button called News, working as a navigation button, redirects to Offers instead of showing more details of current promotions and actions. Additionally, the home icon is not corresponding to the News category - it causes mental model inconsistency. The redesigned landing page informs customer about new menu options better and allows them to save money using in-app deals.

Redesign: solutions with elaboration in terms of micro-interaction

Redesigned language and location selection

The language option is disabled when only one choice is possible. It provides limited excise (lesser number of clicks) and better affordance for possibility of action. Redesign for two languages gives the opportunity to reduce excise from 3 to 1 click by showing both options visible on one screen using a toggle switch. In the case of multiple languages, the addition of radio buttons allows users to choose up to three of them. By highlighting the chosen language, it displays more visible system feed-forward.

Solutions for product selection

Redesigned product selection allows to easily explore food options, which is one of the user’s most significant needs. Nowadays, clients seek for simplicity and similarities between mobile apps (e.x. buttons in usual places) that save their time and make them feel more confident when navigating.

‍

Additional observations and possible extra features

Application introduction

In the era of fast content consumption, a design pattern that would be more attractive to users includes animations and short videos. Taking this into account, a more effective and visually appealing way of explaining the process of a loyalty program  to collect points is a demonstrative video.

Data visualization

Whenever video content is not possible or effective, for example when presenting numerical data such as nutritious values, it can be introduced in a visual way. The current display does not fit the system model of the mobile environment: it’s a scan of a PDF document with a list of all products and categories. It is cluttered and hard to search for details. One of the solution is to put corresponding bars that help to understand the numbers behind each category.

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The User Experience development should be accomplished by an experienced professional. Like other digital products, mobile apps need to be designed in a way that delivers a positive impression. Well-planned application interface is easy-to-use, functional, responsive and visually appealing.

Project: Building a Central Operations Database and Dashboard to track, visualize and report on Sales, Support, & Schedules for over 50 Contractors and Employees.

The goal of the project: Utilize Monday.com as the central operations hub for Santa’s Club

• Consolidating and Integrating data from multiple systems into a central hub.
• Formalized process for onboarding employees, managing product delivery & support. 
• Client was initially using dozens of excel spreadsheets to manage their processes and we worked together to track all data through Monday.com, Acuity Scheduling & ZenDesk. 

I'm an expert in Monday.com, Integromat and Systems Analysis with 6 years experience. I have extensive experience designing and building automated systems, workflows, automations and integrations. I have executed dozens of automated workflows for small and medium sized businesses. Tim Little, SoftwareSupp Freelancer

Project overview

Company: SantasClub

Time: 16 hours

Scope:

• Integrations from Zendesk and Acuity Scheduling into monday.com
• KPI Dashboard to report on key metrics of business operations
• Onboarding Dashboard and database for bringing ing new employees
• Product Delivery
  

Skills used/required

No Code Integrations, Monday.com Automations & Integrations, API Integrations, Business Process Definition, Workflow Diagramming, Project Management. ‍

Great experience working with a great client! They had a great start to the management of their operations which was a great prep for automating their workflows. It was a great challenge working with a couple of new systems alongside Monday.com which I have extensive experience in.

Project details

• Streamline scheduling & capacity process
• Update Santa Capacity board with actuals from spreadsheet
• Working session to test added scenarios
• Link Schedule to capacity
• Explore using the acuity schedule / calendars to determine utilization
• Pull Keepsake files from sessions into monday.com - Utilization
• Create a board to manage personalized Messages
• Revisit Santa rating score / data collection
• Create a board for 'complete' package

• KPI Dashboard Round 2
• KPI Santa Schedule Reports
• Number for Sessions Per Day & Year
• Pie Chart of products Per Day & Year
• Pie Chart of Coupon Codes Per Day & Year
• Add Customer Survey Data to KPI board
• Test Acuity sync for Schedule, reschedule, change, cancel
• Fix 'Reschedule' status
• Add Client contact info to Santa utilization

Summary

A Central Operations Database and Dashboard that; tracks, visualizes and reports; Sales, Support, & Schedules for over 50 Contractors and Employees.

Saved significant time managing business operations dozens of hours a week. 

Provided Key Business insights into their business, sales, operations & Product Delivery Improvement.

For the future it will be important to focus on providing Value to the client. What are the tasks & deliverables that will create the most value, (save time, make them money, etc…).