Case Study — The tile calculator project
Introduction
A tile calculator or mortar dosage calculator is a kind of tool that aims to estimate the total amount of a product that will be required to lay the tiles on a construction. There are a few variations, some help you find out the number of tiles that will be required given a certain space, and others would point to the amount of mortar required to lay those tiles.
The tile laying job, often performed by the so-called "tile guys" or "tile installers", relies on products manufactured by the company we’ve developed the solution for: Mortar, the adhesive used to hold tiles to a surface, and grout, the substance used to seal the gaps between tiles. These calculations are often done by hand, both by the tile installers and the supplier stores that sell these materials.
We did our research, ran rounds of creative thinking, and decided that the solution we’d build needed to be:
- Intuitive and with clear messaging
- Deliver the most value to the user in a single tool
- Strengthen the brand and its products
In this post, we’ll walk through our decisions, challenges, the shipped solution, and how it now also helps the company better understand market trends in the field of construction.
What most other companies seem to miss entirely is creating an experience that makes the brand stand out and that provides all the information the users need. The tools we’ve tested online offered a crappy experience, and, even though they provided the calculation results, what did stick was how bad it was having to use this tool from "Company X".
It was clear we had the opportunity to stand out by making a solution that is delightful to use and creates a positive bond between the user and the company.
The developed web tool
When accessing the tool, the user gets out of the "site context", which can be distracting with its other purposes, and enters the context of the tool, a web application with a clear goal of providing the answers one is looking for.
We’ve made sure that the brand’s colors and logo were present all the time, and that the elements were placed appropriately on the screen to keep the relation between the tool and the company that provides it stick with the user. The tool is also created with responsive design, that is, it works perfectly on a mobile, tablet, or desktop device, making sure that the tool provides a neat experience regardless of which device one is using.
Providing immediate value
The tile calculator we’ve built has a simple 8-step questionnaire, with a single quick-to-answer question on each step, so that the screen doesn’t get cluttered with showing all questions at once. After answering them all, a results screen is presented with the estimates for what the customer needs:
- Amount of mortar
- Amount of grout
- Number of tiles
- Number of tile spacer clips
We lay all the information in a way that is simple to digest and also provide a full run-down of the questions answered. The first paragraph reads details of the provided information in a continuous text, making it easy to just share this screen with other tile guys responsible for the tile laying as well as others involved in the construction, for example, the person responsible for purchasing the required materials.
Strengthening the brand
The results screen is the place where we took the opportunity to strengthen the brand even further by adding a product recommendation section.
Besides giving the most valuable information we can for the specific situation of the user, we are also persuasive with a product recommendation that fits the situation perfectly, and we enforce the safety and guarantee of success of using the product.
There are different types of mortar to be used in different situations, there’s for instance a specific product for ceramic tiles and another for porcelain tiles, and if the area of the laying is internal or external calls for a product that is more or less water resistant. We collect this information on the questionnaire and have included in the tool’s calculation the technical details of all products that the company offers for tile laying and made the tool able to recommend the product that matches perfectly the scenario the customer is in.
We’ve managed to strengthen the brand with a polished tool that causes a positive experience for the customer, and also by doing case-specific product recommendation that incentivizes the customer to look for the brand’s product for the job.
Using data to discover market trends
The web tool allows for collecting multiple data points such as people’s choice of tile types (ceramic, marble, porcelain…) and sizes (60x60, 90x90, 84x84…), and more. Collecting such data has allowed us to visualize a few trends and better understand market behavior. We’ve noticed for instance that for a given tile size, it’s more likely for customers to choose porcelain over ceramic, and we also got data on the average use of ceramic vs porcelain on the tile laying job.
With this info in hand, the company can make informed decisions as to which products to further develop or promote in their marketing campaigns.
We use Mixpanel to organize the data we collect into visually rich reports to share with our partners. We intentionally create reports that are simple to understand and to get immediate value from, without adding complexity of presentation. What matters to us is being able to validate assumptions, so we are mindful of the data we collect, without filling the screen with reports that don’t say anything as simple make you waste hours looking at.
Challenges are hidden opportunities
A notable challenge for this sort of tool arises due to the diverse, yet similar, user group. The tool has been getting visits from end-consumers who are browsing on their own for answers to what they need for the tile laying job and also by building tools store owners, who found it time-saving and appealing to provide their customers with complete and professional guidelines for the job.
The store owner and the end consumer have different interests in mind. The recommended products section is great for the consumer who is presented with the ideal products for the specific conditions of the construction, but store owners might be out of stock for those products, and there usually are a few products that can be used interchangeably in some scenarios. Since we decided to show only the "best match" on the tool and not a list of all case-fitting products, some store owner became wary of printing these guidelines for their customers when they’d be selling a product not shown on the recommendation.
As for the factory, being able to precisely recommend the best product for a given scenario directly benefits the end-user, who ends up with the ideal product for the required work.
Such a challenge presents itself in the form of an opportunity, as we see the possibility of enhancing the tool to have different features for store owners and end customers.
The tool has become a medium for the brand to stand out, reaching new customers who were searching for answers, and for the store owners to have extra support from the factory, which provides them with a tool useful for themselves and valuable to their customers.
Thank you for reading, and feel free to send me a message if you wish to chat.
