MVP digital product for rental management
You can read this case study in Spanish here.
First individual project at Iron Hack Madrid.
BRIEFING
Design an MVP (Minimum viable product) of a digital product that proposes a solution to a problem found in relation to wellness or the tracking of money in everyday matters.
A proposal was made to solve the communication problem between the owners and the tenants.
CONTEXT
According with the Statistics National Institute in Spain (INE, 2019), 18.3% of households reside on a rental basis. This figure increases 3.3% annually, one in two young people in a rental property.
The economy of the country has made the rental system increasingly important, but there is also a rise in prices, which, in many cases, leads to shared housing among people.
Here we consider two profiles: owners and tenants. Between these two users a multitude of procedures and payments are carried out.
Taking this information as a base, we began to investigate what was the relationship between these two profiles, how they communicated and how they carried out the bureaucracy and costs.
PART 1: USER EXPERIENCE (UX)
RESEARCH
Benchmarking
To find out what already existed in this area as a digital product, we carried out a SWOT and a competitor’s analysis. We did not find any tool, website, or application in which users could manage all procedures, but rather payment websites through which you can hire a team to manage documents and housing issues..
The identified tools with the greatest connection were Flixflo, Holahome and Rentger. We also found free websites and applications related to searching homes like Idealista or Airbnb but only to search for houses.
Surveys and interviews
Through the 160 surveys and 11 interviews, it was possible to conclude that there was a problem, in many cases, in the relationship and communication between owners and tenants.
Thus, we find two user profiles:
On the one hand, owners increasingly distrust the people who rent their properties. Delinquency is growing more and more and they have to take care of any bureaucratic paperwork and breakdowns. When an owner owns multiple properties, this issue is an inconvenience in many cases.
On the other hand, tenants, who are paying more and more rent, advance payments to speed up maintenance and sometimes they also have a certain distrust towards the owners. 90% of people who live in a rental property do so in a shared way with others.
In some cases, these two users are combined, since one person can be an owner and tenant at the same time.
In the results we find that, at a quantitative level:
- 70% of the people who live or have rented do so jointly.
- 80% admit that their communication is made by email or WhatsApp through mobile.
- 45% claim to have suffered a situation of tension related to payment of bills or repairs.
At a qualitative level:
- Owners mistrust that tenants pay.
- There is great frustration from tenants when feeling neglected.
- There is a great loss of documentation on leases.
With the information already a little more focused, we developed the Lean UX:
Empathize
To empathize more with both users, we formed their empathy maps and their user persona from which we developed their user journey and user scenario, where they could find some opportunities to create solutions.
SOLUTION: RENTERS
What is Renters?
Renters is a mobile application where you can easily process repairs and payments. Also, unify and share all documentation and incidents of the homes between owners and tenants.
As functionalities it offers:
- A complete record of rental documents (contract, invoices, renewals, administrative documentation, etc.).
- A system for claiming payment and refund of repairs.
- An incidences section with photos and attached invoices and technical offers.
As benefits it will provide:
- Quick and organized access to property documentation.
- Ease of reporting breakdowns and incidents that occurred during the stay.
- Agility in the management of payments and refunds.
To better define the functionalities, taking into account that we had to develop an MVP, a MoSCoW was completed as a technique for prioritizing the ideas that had emerged for the app.
Information architecture
Starting from the functionalities that we thought would be in the application, the site map of the tool was elaborated, organizing it through a card sorting.
Two parallel site maps were developed, because in the app there would be two profiles, as previously mentioned, owner and tenant.
After registering in the application, as an owner or as a tenant, the user will access their home screen.
In the case of the owner, on his screen you will find a tab bar with the following sections: properties, collections, incidents, payments and chat. In addition to a direct access to the profile where you can make adjustments or change to a profile as a tenant. In the tenant profile, the ‘properties’ section will be replaced by ‘rentals’ and the charges icon will be deleted.
Starting from the site map, the ideal user flow that would be shown in the prototype was decided: a tenant who reports a fault to his owner.
Once the chosen flow was clear, the low and medium fidelity prototypes were made and tested:
PART 2: USER INTERFACE (UI)
To begin to give an image, a style and a character to the new tool, a moodboard was carried out together with a survey of brand attributes where the following values were highlighted: friendly, efficient, functional and collaborative.
We started designing the hi-fi prototype. Various colors of the moodboard were obtained, which were varying until the final design was achieved. Lato was chosen for the typeface, since it is a standard typeface and fitted with the formality of the application.
In relation to the iconography, simple icons with curved ends were selected, in keeping with the style and the cards of the tool.
To make a coherent prototype, a guide of spacing, shadows and alignments was made. In addition, a style tile, a style guide and a UI kit were composed to have all the elements unified.
To complete the design of the hi-fi prototype, onboarding was added to better introduce users so that they would have information about the app’s functionalities before registering.
MONETIZATION
The application would have a database of verified technicians and companies that can be easily accessed through the application so that repairs can be made quickly. Individual companies or technicians who wanted to appear in the application as verified technicians would pay a fee for this. Moreover, part of the payments made by the owners through the app to the technicians would be a small commission that would also contribute to an investment in the app.
CONCLUSION AND LEARNING
It has been an incredible and enriching challenge to carry out a project individually. It has also been frustrating at times for not knowing if the development was being done well or not. The difficulties that arose, however, were resolved through interviews and product testing to focus the solution and design more and more.
It is very interesting to see how a digital product is formed based on the statement of a problem and how it increasingly has a more defined shape using the different tools of the creation process in the UX / UI design.
