HomeHunt App and Responsive Website
HomeHunt gives apartment hunters the reins with the app, making it easy to start their searching, locating, examining, and booking the apartment
online with features such as virtual tours.
Project Overview
The problem:
In this digital age, almost everything is online. Savvy renter such as Gen Z and millennial wants to organize their rent payments, maintenance requests, and sign rental leases online. Currently, we don’t have a dedicated mobile app and responsive website to book apartments.
The goal:
The main objective is to create a dedicated mobile app and responsive website for HomeHunt with efficient user flow. Through this app and website, individuals will be able to organize their rent payments, maintenance requests, and sign rental leases online.
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Project duration:
February 2022 to March 2022
My Role
UX designer leading the app and responsive website design from conception to delivery
Responsibilities:
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
Research Overview
I analyzed the current situation of the housing and apartment hunting process in my locality to develop interview questions, which were then used to conduct user interviews. Most interviewees revealed having difficulty finding an apartment and feeling exhausted after a long grueling process. Moreover, it was surprising to find that the participants wanted other complementary features such as rent payment and maintenance requests along with the feature to find and book a house. The feedback received through research paved my design process and it was clear that users would enjoy using a tech-savvy system than traditional paper-based.
User Persona
Competitive audit
An audit of a few competitor’s products provided direction on gaps and opportunities to address with the HomeHunt app.
Ideation
In the ideation phase of the design process, in order to come up with lots of design solutions for the problems that users are experiencing, I used Crazy Eight Exercise.
Crazy Eight
Paper Wireframes
Digital wireframes
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the HomeHunt app.
To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype that connected the user flow of searching, checking the availability, and booking an apartment.
Low-fidelity prototype
Usability Study
Affinity Diagram
Mockup
High-fidelity
prototype
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.
1. Used color, icon, and typography appropriate for all kinds of users.
Accessibility Considerations
2. Clear labels for interactive elements that can be read by screen readers.
3. Incorporated high-resolution images.
Responsive Web Design
Site Map
After completing the dedicated app designs,, I started work on designing the responsive website. I used the HomeHunt sitemap to guide the organizational structure of each screen’s design to ensure a cohesive and consistent experience across devices.
Impact:
Users were excited to use the app and they said that the app will make their life much easier in a lot of ways. They were ready to embrace the online HomeHunt thrill.
What I learned:
I learned that putting users front and center should be our main goal. Empathizing users’ needs actually paved our way for designing inclusive and accessible products. I have also learned that as UX designers we have to be persistent and diligent in fulfilling our intended goal.
Future Work
Post-Launch Research
Conduct research on how successful the app is after the launch.
Improve the accessibility by adding assistive features.
Keep iterating the design.