Introduction
Role: UX Researcher and UX Designer
Duration: 1 Month
Tools: Usability hub, Optimal Sort, G-suite, zoom, & Figma
Our Home is an apartment hunting mobile app that aims to solve one major issue with apartment hunting: not being able to get a realistic understanding of apartment listings. Our Home aims to combat this problem by consolidating listings from around the web and allowing for reviews and clear communication with listers and renters.
Methodology
I used the design thinking process as I worked to develop Our Home. This process allowed me to understand my users and ideate on my design constantly as my knowledge of the user grew.
Step 1: Sizing up the Competitors.
“Users need a platform where they can get a realistic understanding of the apartments and homes for rent that are on the market. A place where current tennents can talk to interested renters does not exist. Our app should provide a consolidated listing of locations for rent, where users can comfortably inquire about the home. We will know this to be true when our user base increases.”
The Problem Statement
After defining and identifying the main problem that “Our Home” should solve I went on to conduct a competitive analysis. For this competitive analysis I took a look at three different popular mobile-apps used for apartment hunting. These three apps were the Apartments . com app, Zillow, and Trulia. For each of these apps I analysed their key objectives, overall strategy, and market advantage. I also created a marketing profile and SWOT analysis for each. Based on my analyses I identified what “Our Home” could do differently to be more successful and what things worked well for all of these apps. Below you can see the analysis I conducted for Zillow.
Step 2: Defining the business requirements.
After taking a through look at the competition I began to define the business requirements for for “Our Home”. This is when I created an Executive Summary, went over the S.M.A.R.T. Business Objectives, reviewed the basic scope for the project, identified the functional requirements, and finalized a delivery schedule. Below I’ve shared a list of the functional requirements for the app.
The high-level functional requirements are:
•Onboarding process
•Log in / sign up page
•Home page that is specific to the user
•Settings and user account page
•Way for users to enter and store their preferences
•Way for users to find apartments in their area
•Q/A component where users can ask questions to current tenants
•Ability to save apartments
.Ability to contact lister and apply directly on site
I then created user stories based on each high-level requirement (shown below!)
Step 3: Understanding the user through research.
Next up I dived into user research for “Our Home”! First I listed out some main research goals to keep in mind throughout this process. These goals include, identify the needs and goals of the potential user, identify important thoughts, beliefs, and experiences, and identify pain points and opportunities. To conduct my research I created surveys and interview questions to collect and analyse both qualitative and quantitative data. I created and distributed my survey through google forms and conducted my interviews both in person and virtually over zoom.
Research findings from Interviews and Surveys
I created an affinity map based on my research findings. This map is formulated based on 14 different interviews and 36 individual survey responses.
Step 4: Empathizing with the user.
After conducting interviews and collecting survey data, I went on to create my user personas. These Personas are based on the qualitative and quantitative data I collected earlier. and help me empathize with the main user groups for “My Home”.
Step 5: Information Architecture.
I then conducted a card sort task to decide on the information architecture of “Our Home”.
Step 6: Wireframing and prototyping.
Paper prototypes
Step 8: Solving Problems through Iteration
Based on these persona’s I then created user journey maps and user flows for each user. Below we can see Aaliyah’s journey finding and using “Our Home” to hunt for her next apartment.
By creating paper prototypes first, I was able to immediately implement the basic architecture of my app and then test the basic structure via usability tests. I could easily adjust these designs before moving on to digital prototyping.
Iterating on the design
I continued to work on the designs for “Our Home”. After testing the paper wireframes with my group of potential users, I created my low-fidelity, mid-fidelity, and high-fidelity digital wireframes and clickable prototype using figma. Below you can take a look at some of those designs.
Step 7: Continued user testing
I continued to test my designs after making my high-fidelity wireframes, this included A/B testing.
The majority of participants chose screen 1. Their reasons for choosing this one ranged from “the two columns look more interesting than one” to “the preview image is larger”. After receiving feedback, I chose to go with image 1.
Final thoughts and Learnings
Working on this project was a fantastic experience, from research and testing to designing the different elements, every part was interesting and fulfilling. As I worked on this project I saw that the design process takes time and requires careful observation and research. Feedback is essential for creating a usable and well rounded product.
Although there were times I was unsure about what direction to move in, I decided to trust my intuition and learn from others.
My next steps will include continued user testing, to improve usability and an update of the UI and overall visual design based on user feedback.
Here you can see a few improvements made to the screens that showcase apartments, apartment details, and the chat page. The search page now has ratings shown via stars on each apartment listing. This helps users immediately see the overall average rating for an apartment before clicking on it, potentially saving the users some clicks. Next in the middle we have an example of a listing. here the first thing the user sees is an overview and a way to contact the leasing agent or whoever posted the listing. Under that there are user reviews and ratings so that the user can get an idea of what the apartment is really like, by clicking the three dot menu next to the reviewers name they can also send a message to that reviewer to get a few more details on the place from a different person’s perspective. Lastly we have the chat feature. This feature allows users to talk to either the lister or different users to learn more about listing, discuss any questions they have, and share images.
