App demo
Whitmore ServiceWhitmore Heating & Plumbing, Dayton
Job A-2481
The status people otherwise ring the office for — and the one thing to do here: check that “access” says the right thing. That is what most wasted call-outs come down to.
- In the hands of
- Customer on a maintenance contract
- Shown on
- iOS — title centred, swipe bar below
- Replaces
- Replaces three calls to the office — “is anyone still coming today?”, “can we move the appointment?” and “could you send that invoice again?” — plus the note stuck to the fridge. The office saves the callbacks, the customer the hold music.
Everything in this demo is laid out and none of it acts: buttons only report that they have no effect in the demo, checkboxes are fixed, input fields lead nowhere. Nothing is stored, sent or fetched.
How Awelior would approach this project
Whitmore Heating & Plumbing, Dayton is invented — the way it is built is not. None of this is work delivered for a client. It is the shape we would give such a project — with the same depth, but without a client who would have to answer for it.
Where it starts
Whitmore Heating & Plumbing looks after customers on maintenance contracts. The most frequent call to the office is not a fault but a status question: when is somebody coming, how far along is the job, where is the invoice. Every one of those interrupts somebody doing something else — and none of them needs a person.
Decisions
Job status as a step chain, not a percentage
Accepted, scheduled, on the way, done. A customer does not want to know a job is 60 per cent complete; she wants to know whether somebody is still ringing the bell today. Named steps answer that; a progress bar does not.
Messages instead of “please call back”
A thread with the company, attached to the job. That puts the question where the answer belongs — not in a mailbox where it sits between invoices.
An iOS frame with a centred title
The app sits in an iOS device because private customers in this segment mostly carry iPhones. The decision is stated openly, so it stays visible that platform is a choice and not a default.
Deliberately left outNo self-service appointment booking. Maintenance visits hang off route planning; a freely chosen slot would undercut dispatch and be a promise nobody in the business would back.
What is in it
- Screens
- 5
- Tabs
- 4
- Content blocks
- 16
- Languages
- 4
A tab bar plus a pushed job view with a way back, in all four languages, including the four states on the account screen. Navigation responds; everything else is laid out and inert.
How it would go on
Sign-in and matching
A customer has to be linked to her contract — in a way that shows her only her own jobs, even when she has several properties.
Connection to the job system
The status in the app has to be the status in the office. A second status maintained by hand is worse than none.
Notifications in moderation
Push is the reason an app like this relieves anyone at all — and the fastest route to being deleted. Which events notify is the company's decision.
An app like this for your business?
Whitmore Service is invented — the fit is not. Apps come about exactly this way: from the routes that already exist in a business, only without the paper in between.
Sample app by Awelior. Invented business, invented data, nothing stored.