Capstone Project · Sahay

People didn't want a handyman app. They wanted to trust the person coming into their home.

Sahay is a trust-first home-maintenance platform: a concept for confident repair decisions from the moment something breaks through to aftercare. It looks like a logistics problem, but the harder problem underneath is trust, letting a stranger into your home.

Role: UX Researcher & Product Designer
Timeline: 6 months, 2 academic quarters
Contribution: Research, product strategy, interaction design

Methods & tools User Interviews Survey Competitive Analysis Personas Usability Testing AI-Assisted Flows

Where it started

"Home maintenance isn't really about the task. It's about who you let in."

I worked on Sahay as a three-person capstone team with Swetha Thanabalan and Joshua Phillips. The idea came from one of our own experiences as a first-time homeowner, overwhelmed by unfamiliar electrical, heating, and plumbing systems, in a category full of scams and inconsistent service.

Our problem statement: people living independently struggle to identify home maintenance issues and don't know who to trust for help, leading to stress, wasted time, and poor decisions. Sahay helps homeowners understand the issue, choose DIY or professional support, find trustworthy providers, and stay ahead of future maintenance.

"I looked at where people got stuck between 'something's wrong' and 'someone fixed it.'"

8 homeowner interviews across the US, affinity-mapped as a team in FigJam.
16-response survey, distributed on Reddit (r/DIY, r/HomeMaintenance, r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer, r/HomeImprovement, and others) and through homeowner associations.
Competitive scan of 6 platforms (TaskRabbit, Urban Company, Angi/HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, YouTube) against 8 criteria, from user education to aftercare. I ran interviews, owned the survey, and led the teardown of TaskRabbit and Urban Company.

Observed
Homeowners weighed DIY-vs-professional decisions less on skill and more on how much they trusted their own read of the problem. Uncertainty about diagnosis pushed people toward calling someone, even for small issues.

92% wanted pricing upfront, before booking anyone, the single most consistent frustration across the survey and interviews.

75% owned their home, most older than 6 years

64% knew who to call when something broke

57% tried to fix it themselves first

79% trust a referral over any app

Every marketplace told the same story: strong on booking, weak on trust and education.

Observed

Only YouTube taught people what was wrong before they acted, through rich, symptom-based tutorials with no pressure to hire anyone.
"Vetted" providers weren't consistently vetted. Angi's own bar for a badge was as low as a single 3-star review.
TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, and HomeAdvisor buried users in forms asking for repair duration or contact details before showing any real value.
Not one platform had a real emergency flow or a structured aftercare step. Once a job was booked, the relationship ended there.

Research synthesis, straight from our FigJam boards:

FigJam board with raw sticky notes from all 8 homeowner interviews, color-coded by team member — Raw notes from all 8 interviews, color-coded by team member.

Affinity map titled Home Maintenance Experiences, grouping notes on repair habits, service preferences, and DIY-vs-professional behavior — Affinity group: home maintenance experiences and habits.

Affinity map titled Attitude Towards Home Repair Apps, grouping notes on payment preferences, app usage, and trust in providers — Affinity group: attitudes toward paying for and trusting a home-repair app.

Affinity map titled Desired Features in Home Repair App, grouping notes on symptom checkers, urgency guidance, and logging past fixes — Affinity group: the features people asked for unprompted.

Affinity map titled DIY Approach to Home Repairs, grouping notes on reliance on YouTube, Google, and family for troubleshooting — Affinity group: how people actually DIY today.

Who we designed for

Three homeowners, three very different relationships with trust.

Interview and survey findings converged into three personas that shaped every flow that followed.

Alex

42 · Business Analyst · First-time homeowner, Boston suburbs

Family-oriented, juggling work and parenting in a newly purchased 25-year-old house. Not particularly handy or tech-savvy. Wants clear information, reliable recommendations, efficient solutions.

How he'd use Sahay

Spots a water stain on the ceiling. Uploads a photo to Sahay's symptom checker instead of Googling, gets a plain-language read (minor roof leak, address within a week), a confirmation checklist, pre-vetted roofers, a follow-up reminder, and a cost range so he isn't blindsided.

E&R

Emma & Ryan

29 & 31 · UX Designer & Data Analyst · Condo, Philadelphia

A young couple with packed weekdays and no time for leaking faucets. Ryan researches reviews and comparisons; Emma wants things that just work. Cautious but capable.

How they'd use Sahay

Heating feels off, guests coming that evening. They run a quick symptom check together instead of five browser tabs. Sahay suggests a thermostat issue with a confidence rating, surfaces HVAC experts free that weekend, gives an upfront estimate. They bookmark the seasonal checklist for next month.

David Patel

49 · Accountant & landlord · 2 rental properties

Financially savvy, uninterested in micromanaging tenants. Finds renters a mixed bag: reliable grad students vs. unpredictable undergrads. Wants fewer late-night emergencies.

How he'd use Sahay

Tenants text at midnight that the heat is out. With Sahay, they submit through guided prompts, try safe first steps, and only route to David automatically if it persists, arriving with a diagnostic guess and vetted contractors already attached.

"Trust had to be designed, not assumed."

Inferred

Speed and price weren't the real decision drivers. Underneath both was control, whether someone felt they understood their own home well enough to say yes. Transparency gave that control back.
A real tension: people wanted a smart AI, but several said they preferred a visual interface and disliked chat-only experiences. Conversational AI couldn't be the only way in.

"I designed around a clearer path from problem to resolution."

Research synthesis fed a team feature brainstorm across two boards, one for desired features, one for how the app should feel, then four buckets that became the product's information architecture.

Team FigJam boards: a sticky-note list of desired features on the left, and sketches of the app's conversational-AI entry point and feature groupings on the right — Early feature ideation, sorted from a raw sticky-note dump into the core flows that shaped the prototype.

Core features: issue-tracking board, vendor directory with reviews and scheduling, onboarding for new homes.
AI & automation: conversational AI with search, voice, and camera input, smart maintenance reminders, a linked handbook.
Social & collaboration: YouTube-shorts-style DIY clips, multi-user homes with shared visibility.
User experience: AI asks DIY-or-hire preference before suggesting a path; booking includes backup scheduling.

That logic became two flows: the full app map, and the simplified path from symptom to resolution.

Detailed flowchart of the full Sahay app, mapping onboarding, home feed, AI assistant, issue tracking, DIY guides, and vendor directory — The full app flow: onboarding through issue tracking, DIY, and vendor booking.

Simplified linear flowchart from opening the app through diagnosis, choosing DIY or professional, and logging the resolved issue — The simplified version: one primary path, one decision point.

Click a factor below to see the design decision it led to.

The prototype

From "what's going on?" to "it's handled."

A walkthrough of the built prototype, followed by every screen, grouped by flow.

A full click-through of the prototype, onboarding to a booked repair.

Onboarding

Welcome

Create account screen with name, email, password, phone, and location fields, step 1 of 2 — Create account

Invite household members screen with a share invite link and email invite field, step 2 of 2 — Invite household members

Diagnosing an issue

Sahay home screen with a symptom search bar and quick-suggestion cards for sink leaking, thermostat broken, no power, and AC warm air — Home: quick suggestions or describe the issue

Conversational AI diagnosis screen asking a follow-up question about a reported water stain, question 1 of 2 — AI asks follow-up questions to narrow the diagnosis

Issue logged confirmation with Sahay's diagnosis and a choice between DIY and professional help — Diagnosis delivered, DIY or professional

Going the DIY route

DIY guide categories: plumbing, electrical, HVAC, appliances, carpentry, painting, outdoor, doors and windows — Step-by-step guides by category

Issue detail for a water stain with the DIY path chosen, showing numbered next steps to fix it yourself — DIY path: numbered next steps, option to switch to a pro

Tracking repairs

Issue board Open tab listing leaky kitchen faucet, garage door won't close, outlet sparking in basement, and cracked window seal — Open issues, at a glance

Issue detail for a water stain ceiling leak on the professional path, showing a repair-stage tracker from reported through resolved — Professional path: a visible repair-stage tracker

Issue board In Progress tab listing repaint living room wall and HVAC filter replacement — In progress

Issue board Resolved tab with completed issues shown in strikethrough — Resolved, kept as a home history

Booking a vendor

Trusted vendors list showing ratings, review counts, and distance for local plumbing, electrical, and HVAC professionals — Vendor directory: rating, reviews, distance upfront

Book service screen selecting a preferred date and time slot for SturdyHand Carpentry — Preferred date and time

Book service screen selecting a backup date and time in case the preferred slot falls through — A backup slot, in case the first falls through

Book service screen with service-details form for additional notes before confirming — Service details, then confirm

My Home & account

Home profile setup

My Home screen with appliance inventory, upcoming maintenance with preferred and backup scheduling, and home member management — Appliances and upcoming maintenance

My Home screen showing shared household access, emergency contacts, and a home warranty document with an AI summary badge — Shared access, emergency contacts, AI-summarized documents

AI summary modal for a water heater warranty document, listing key warranty details and suggested maintenance reminders — AI summary of an uploaded warranty document

Account settings screen with notifications, privacy and security, preferences, account settings, help and support, and logout — Account settings

Visual identity

A warm, trustworthy palette with a hint of editorial confidence.

A bold italic serif for headlines, monospace for labels and body, editorial next to technical. Color stays warm and low-saturation except where a decision needs attention.

Background #F7F4EB

Surface #FCFAF9

Primary accent #C16B4A

Secondary accent #82947B

Tertiary accent #7D90A2

Text #2F2F2F

What's going on at home?

Display & headlines

Bold italic serif, used for every screen title and moment of reassurance.

STEP 1 OF 2 · FULL NAME

Labels, body & UI

Monospace throughout inputs, tags, and navigation, a technical counterweight to the serif.

"I tested the flow with real users, then iterated on where trust broke down."

Round 1, before building anything. I tested the core flow concept with 3 renters in Philadelphia, no UX background, so feedback stayed grounded.

Tested

None had a proactive approach to home maintenance, everyone was reactive.
The AI-first approach and flexible input (photo, voice, text) resonated without much explaining.
DIY-vs-hire was the single most understood, most appreciated part of the flow.
Vendor frustration, too many calls, no pricing upfront, came up with all three. A quote-based in-app approach landed well.

Round 2, on the built prototype. Moderated sessions across 8 tasks, home screen to AI issue reporting, the issue board, vendor booking, DIY exploration, watching for hesitation, misclicks, and whether people trusted the AI.

Tested

Broken save-for-later

The path between DIY mode and the issue board had a broken step, a loop that could quietly lose a user's place mid-task.

No real-time availability

The vendor list showed preference, not availability, so testers had to open several profiles just to find someone actually free for an urgent repair.

"Add Issue" didn't fire

Testers could only log a new issue from the home screen, and the emergency-contact field in the home profile silently failed to save.

Reviews felt thin

Testers wanted more descriptive, verified reviews and a way to see who'd actually booked through the app, otherwise they defaulted back to Google reviews.

Pricing without duration

An hourly rate range ($45–$65/hr) wasn't enough, testers couldn't tell if a leaking roof would cost $45 or $450.

AI didn't close the loop

Without a concrete recommendation, testers said they'd still go check YouTube afterward, the flow needed to end in a next step, not just acknowledgment.

What's next

Fixing the broken save-for-later and add-issue loops, building real vendor availability into booking instead of a preference-only match, and deepening the AI's recommendations so a session ends with an actual next step instead of a dead end.