Design a mobile app for tenant to find a good place to rent

Freelancer Design Project

09.2023 - 11.2023

RooMap is a mobile search platform that helps people find their ideal place to rent.

Scope

UX/UI Design

Interaction Design

Prototyping

Tools & Methods

Figma

Design Thinking, Concept Ideation, Design Decision

Contents

The challenge

Discover

Define

Information Architecture

User stories

Design Decisions

Key Takeaways

TOP

The challenge

Current Situation

Improving from an existing platform

My client owns a 20.4k member's Facebook public group where people post ads and find places to rent. The RooMap mission is to help people find their ideal properties, and it already has a wide range of audiences from both sides of this marketplace- renters and landlords.

Problem

However, apartment hunting on Facebook Group is not efficient or effortless.

Opportunities

Building a new, powerful product is an excellent extension of RooMap's mission: to leverage its existing audience, increase its value to them, and provide RooMap with a revenue stream.

Discover

Competitive analysis

I did some research to see if I could leverage any insights into features and functions to inform my design decisions. I downloaded the four most popular apps in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and compared their key features, flows, and feelings. This chart shows the key features that will significantly affect the user experience.

Discovering Audience Groups

We divided the audience into two groups and did in-depth interviews with them.

Renters

Renters

Landlords

For renters, apartment hunting is extremely time-consuming and exhausting.

  • Location and price are their priority. In addition, they have many different personal considerations, such as amenities and pet-friendly neighborhoods. Users cannot effectively filter out places that meet their criteria.

  • 80% of users think the place is not as expected.

  • Most of the rental information comes from agents. Users find it difficult to check availability.

For landlords, posting ads on the Facebook Group repeatedly is a struggle.

  • The landlord said they must repost their ads daily to maintain exposure.

  • This process is lengthy and boring.

Define

Pain points

  1. Challenging to find the ideal property.

  2. Not being aware of the property availability status.

  3. Overwhelming to post ads.

User Goals

  1. I can search places based on my needs.

  2. I can easily access the availability info.

  3. I can easily chat with landlords.

  4. I can post an ad quickly and effortless.

Requirements

After uncovering these insights from the research, I decided to incorporate the findings into the product requirement. Based on the user's goals and needs, the app should be:

  • Useful
    An easy and fast way for landlords to post ads.
    A way for renters to find places they need quickly.

  • Reliable
    A way for renters to report a scam.

    Be transparent about the property info.

Information Architecture

Previous Version

It's difficult to navigate in the previous version.

The process of finding information and completing tasks is too complicated and destructive.

The user is likely to abandon the process and leave the app.

So I decided to begin by thinking about how the user will navigate, search, or use filters and modifying the information architecture.

New version

User Stories

User story 1

As a busy adult, I want to use a search app to find an ideal place to rent so I don't have to walk the streets physically.

Distill epics into stories

After defining the user story and flow, I used the high-level user story to define the high-level tasks and epics. Then I broke down epics into multiple, smaller user stories and tasks for the key features.

Feature 2

Browse, Chat (User Goal 2 & 3)

User story 2

As a busy adult, I want to post an ad easily and quickly so that I can save time and have peace of mind.

Design Decisions

Previous iteration

Landlords

Feature 1

Search, Filter (User Goal 1)

Feature 3

Post an ad (User Goal 4)

How did I get there?

Design Decision 1 - Alternative views

Trade-off 1: Size matters

Trade-off 2: Simple task-based design

I considered different scenarios about how users might act to search the property. Then, I found that I could not accommodate all the scenarios in a single design. So, I decided to offer both a map view and a search results list.

Scenario 1: Location as the first priority

The user searches from the perspective of location and want to dive deep into the details such as the nearest street and nearest building.

A map view is appealing to this scenario better.

Design Decision 2 - The search interface

Scenario 2: Rapid scanning as the first priority

The user wants to scan the photo and the huge number of choices so that the user can pay attention to the properties they consider most attractive.

A list representation is better in this scenario.

In order to design this interface, I asked myself these questions:

  • What is the primary task of this app?

  • HMW establishes a visual hierarchy with the primary content?

Design Decision 3 - Wizard-like experience for posting ads (feature 3)

Key takeaways:

  • Breaking up this complex process into a series of steps can make each step less overwhelming and reduce the pressure.

  • Once they finish the process, we should celebrate this big milestone for the user and make them feel good about finishing the long process.

  • Once the ad is published, the next natural step for them would be to preview it and allow them to promote it - via social networks.

  • This process isn't necessarily linear, so the user should be able to move between different steps.

All the steps are on the same screen as the previous version, and the user felt it was overwhelming. So I tried to find out the criteria for designing the flow of posting ads. Then these design challenges came to my mind:

  • How much effort is the user willing to spend to finish the task?

  • HMW removes attention-focusing responsibility from the user?

Key Takeaways

How to get more initiative in UX Design

  • Understand the business goal and product strategy

We did not conduct user interviews at the beginning of the project. I didn't feel the user's problems and needs. So, in the front, I just drew the wireframe as the client requested. To be honest, I felt very frustrated, and I didn't feel my value. I didn't know what I was doing, the rationale of my design, and who the users were.

So I talked to the client about my thought. I said that I want to know the strategic direction and business goals of this product. Why we make this product? If I understand the goal, I can play a lot of initiative and innovation to help you achieve business goals.

After the conversation, the client agreed to conduct user interviews. In the following collaboration, I have also worked hard to exchange opinions with the client, push back, and defend my design when necessary.

Design system with reusable components

There are about 130 screens in this project. Creating a design system of reusable components can make my work much more efficient and make it easier to develop the app.