Connecting Australians with trusted experts on Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages, a trusted print resource for Australians seeking local trades and services, was now facing new challenges in adapting to an online platform.
Yellow Pages online attracts over 2 million searches for service providers each month. Despite this, the number of users connecting with service providers had been declining.
This revealed a clear disconnect between user expectations and the site's content, sparking key questions about how we could transform these searches into meaningful, successful connections.
The CX team was tasked with answering:

How might we optimise the online directory to facilitate high-quality user to service provider connections?

The Solution

Planning for success

As the sole user researcher, I crafted a schedule of research activities based off our initial brief to drive our discovery forward with purpose and clarity.

The path to success wasn’t a straight line, but rather a dynamic journey that followed the design process outlined below.

We faced a key internal challenge: the broader product team lacked a unified source of truth and a shared understanding of our users and their pain points.

To bridge this gap, the CX team and I focused on actively involving the wider product teams throughout the project, fostering alignment and collaboration. 

To drive this effort, I introduced regular research showcases and established a centralised research repository along the way - making insights easily accessible and sparking greater engagement.

In-depth interviews

Our goal was to uncover how people navigate the journey of hiring a tradesperson, focusing on their decision-making process, key information needs, and barriers at each stage.

Choosing a methodology

This methodology was chosen to explore the emotions tied to each step of the journey, delving into participants' thoughts by continuously probing with "why?" The research was conducted in two phases: first, to understand their experiences, and second, to observe their decision-making process and reflections through a simulated task.

Who did we talk to?

To uncover fresh insights, we recruited 15 participants who had recently hired service providers during their home renovation projects. Conducting remote, online interviews allowed us to gather diverse perspectives from across Australia.

🔹 Participants were asked to share their recent experience hiring a service provider, shedding light on their thoughts, emotions, and challenges.

🔹 Participants completed a scenario-based task—unveiling authentic behaviours and minimising the reliance on self-reported accounts.

“You’re renovating your kitchen when you discover a leak under the sink. You need a plumber quickly to avoid delays. Walk me through how you would go about finding someone to fix the issue.”

Research outcomes

The interviews were uploaded into Dovetail, where they were tagged by content type and synthesised into a research report highlighting the key themes and insights. The analysis revealed gaps in essential information and uncovered common challenges consumers face when selecting a provider.

“I need to know that a provider is reliable, trustworthy and accredited so that I feel confident they can do the job properly.”

INSIGHT

Users need confidence in a provider's value before requesting a quote

"How might we ensure research insights remain actionable and guide decision-making, rather than getting lost in a report?"

By creating a visual journey map, we transformed insights into an active, living resource that could be continuously referenced and utilised. This map became:


A shared reference point – Aligning the team on user needs and challenges.
A tangible representation of research – Making insights more engaging and accessible.
A decision-making tool – Helping prioritize improvements based on real user experiences.

From insights to design

Before diving into ideation workshops, I collaborated closely with the product designer to translate insights into a clear set of product requirements and foundational principles that would guide the experience design.

‘Help me own my experience’

When people need to hire a professional, they often feel overwhelmed by the process. This presents an opportunity to empower users, by giving them control over their experience.

Allow them to explore as much or as little information as they want, providing clear, concise details upfront and deeper insights for those who wish to dive deeper, ensuring a personalised and stress-free journey.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES (EXAMPLE)

Prioritise ‘trust building’ information

When searching for a plumber, people often find it challenging to assess whether a provider is reliable, accredited, and trustworthy.

Highlight trust-building information on business profile pages, such as accreditations, verified customer reviews, and clear business details

Enable users to make informed and confident decisions, ultimately increasing the number of leads generated through business profile pages.

DESIGN REQUIREMENTS (EXAMPLE)

Insight

If we…

We will…

Next Steps

Insights were presented and design changes were prioritised with the Product Team; A/B tests of the new design are ongoing.

During this research I was able to identify a range of usability issues that came up for the consumers on the search results page - this allowed us to create a plan for our next project - to understand: how might we optimise the search page experience?

In this particular project, I was able to demonstrate the importance of researching UX problems holistically (e.g in the context of consumer decision making).

 

Communicating to the product teams that there is a range of external and internal factors that influence a consumers decision making at each stage allowed us to open the door for further research that was needed to improve the product.

  • Chanelle Nasser

    UX Researcher

  • Alexander Law Min

    Product Design - UX/UI

  • Denvinl Wong

    Voice of Customer Lead