My Responsibility

  • End to end design

Timeline

  • May 2022 - July 2022

Problem

How to find rental properties in safe neighborhoods while avoiding unprofessional experiences

When looking for a rental property, women are the most concerned about the safety aspects. Women wish they could have a platform to search for safe neighborhoods and rental properties. Right now, they rely on suggestions from friends, family, and colleagues.

Also, renters experience unprofessional behaviors from property managers like inaccurate listing details, not showing up on time for viewings, lack of transparency on rent, etc.

The Solution

Nonparent women can search properties based on the safety score, and authentic reviews for a transparent process

1.Safety score

The safety score for each property is calculated based on the following criteria:

  • Neighborhood safety score*

  • Landlord background check

  • An on-site security guard or security system

*Neighbourhood safety scores can be based on the crime data from

2. Schedule viewings

  • Coordinate and manage property viewings with the real estate agent from a single place

  • Users receive an email notification to review their experience after viewings

3. Professional and transparent experience

  • Listing managers are reviewed by users for accuracy and professional behavior

  • Users can write reviews only after scheduling a booking through Serene. This insures the authenticity of reviews.

My approach

Design thinking process

I STARTED with interviews

I have noticed, and hypothesize that safety is a common pain point for women

I wanted to understand the challenges people face while searching for a rental property. After my interviews, I created an affinity map to synthesize the data. I observed that safety is a common issue for all women. Also, most of the interviewees faced a lack of transparency and unprofessional behavior in the rental process.

These interviews inspired me to create a hypothesis that the search for a safe place and transparency of the rental process are key challenges. As a next step, I did initial market research to figure out if the available solutions in the market do solve these issues.

Interview insights:

Market research

No rental website focuses on the safety aspects and transparency of the process

I evaluated some leading real-estate websites in North America to understand if they address the needs of my interviewees. These websites have extensive information on features like schools, parks, commute times, etc., and they serve the needs of families.

However, they don’t strongly emphasize safety aspects, which is a major issue for women that I interviewed. Also, there were no features to introduce transparency and accountability for property managers.

This is how my thought process evolved:

  • My customer segments are the following: male, parent women, nonparent women

  • To focus on the common issue of safety, I refine to the following segments: parent women, nonparent women

  • Further, I observed that apart from safety aspects, parent women are also concerned about amenities for kids. To address the need of this segment, a solution should deliver on the family friendliness of the neighborhood (schools, parks, etc.). In my market research, I have found that current solutions already help this customer segment.

  • For my MVP, I wanted to focus on a niche problem, possibly for an underserved customer segment. So I planned to conduct a survey on nonparent women to further validate my hypothesis that safety is an acute pain point

Survey and hypothesis validation

The survey validated the hypothesis that safety concerns and lack of transparency are the key issues

I collaborated with a marking associate to conduct a paid survey through SurveyMonkey. The survey was conducted on women who do not have kids:

  • Number of participants: 65

  • Age: 18 - 60

  • Region: USA.

The results of the survey can be found here.

The survey strongly validated my hypothesis that safety aspects during the search, the accuracy of the listings, transparency of the process, and unprofessional behavior are the key challenges in the rental process.

Major insights:

82%

Women rate safety as one of the key concerns when searching a property

Up to 58%

Women have experienced a lack of transparency and unprofessional behavior in the rental process

Data analysis & customer segmentation

In the age group of 18-29, 96% of women point out safety as their key concern

After the survey, I analyzed data in collaboration with the marketing associate by creating customer segments based on age groups. It is an interesting observation that women in the age group of 18-29 are particularly concerned about safety. However, there were no other insights from the survey that were changing the problem statement or the solution. Hence, it did not make sense for me to further narrow down my customer segment.

Meet my persona

“As a working woman, I want to feel safe and should be able to move to new places confidently to grow in my career”

Identifying feature requrements

A user journey map helped in identifying priority features to solve the problem of my persona

My research had helped me identify key problems that my persona is facing. A user journey map helped me figure out which features and at what step should be implemented in the user workflow to solve their pain points.

Kim’s journey map: 

technical research and feasibility of a soluation

Third-party data and APIs can be used to create a safety score for neighbourhoods and properties

To solve the safety issue, I needed to understand what should be the criteria to define the safety of the neighborhood and the property. Through my research, I figured out that neighborhood safety can be based on the crime rate in the areas. There are multiple sources that provide crime data in the USA. Crime Grade grades zip codes from “A+” to “F” based on the crime rates and, in my solution such data can be used to warn users about the neighborhood.

To ensure the safety of the property, I thought of including the following features:

  • The property manager will provide the info if a security system is installed or there is an on-site security guard

  • If the property is owned by a landlord, then a criminal background check will be run using APIs like Certn.

I had discussions with a data scientist and he confirmed that based on all of these data, an overall safety score can be created for each property.

I thought of creating a review system for them to introduce transparency and make the property managers accountable. For this, I took inspiration from Airbnb. Users can book their property viewings through our platform. Those users whose viewings are scheduled through the platform, can write reviews and provide feedback on their experience.

Ideating the design

I decided to build a responsive website

Now it is time to design a solution that will serve my persona. Property listings generally have a lot of information and visuals. I decided to build a responsive website so my users can browse through that info on different devices. However, I excluded a smartwatches design because it is not a convenient medium to process the listing information.

It was my first time designing a responsive website so I started with drawing paper wireframes. It was a very complex project since there was too much information to be organized. The websites of my competitors were so cluttered that I even felt anxious while browsing through them. Since I wanted to create a minimalist design, I took inspiration from websites like Airbnb, Calendly, and ADPList, which have clear and meaningful information organization.

Next, I drew paper wireframes to explore multiple ideas about organizing all the information. Once I was convinced with a specific layout of screens, it was easy to create digital wireframes.

  1. An uncluttered home screen with the most relevant info for first-time users. No featured or other types of listings are displayed.

  2. Listing summaries with useful details like safety scores and reviews. All the filters are consolidated in a single click of a button.

  3. A listing page with detailed safety features, reviews, and a calendar to book viewings.

Design system

Creating a design system that resonates with the customer segment

Hi-fi prototype

Clickable prototype