Designing an engaging
post-move in experience
OVERVIEW—
Project goal.
MuvnDay is a mobile app that helps new tenants manage moving-related needs — anything from creating checklists, hiring movers and even accessing leasing documents.
However, MuvnDay's founder wanted our team to find a way to encourage tenants to use the app post-move in as well. This required an overhaul of the entire app.
My role.
I was responsible for everything UX: user flows, card-sorting, journey mapping, wireframing, UX writing, prototyping. The works. For user research, we divided the task of conducting user interviews, C&C analysis, usability testing, as well as synthesizing our findings.
PROJECT TYPE
Mobile app design
TIMELINE
4 week-design sprint
UX/ UI DESIGNERS
Seemin Masood, Megan Marshall
TEAM RESPONSIBILITIES
User flows, Research & testing
IA, Wireframing, Prototyping
Personas, Style guide, Pitch Deck
TOOLS
Sketch, InVision, Miro, Trello, Google suite
Disclaimer: All views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the respective company.
DISCOVER—
Why a redesign?
It was evident from our Competitor analysis and Industry trends that the existing MuvnDay app was not offering services at the level of its competitors in the space.
Competitors like Zego, Space Flow and Apt App boasted features like direct messaging with Property Managers (PM) and neighbors, local deals & events guide and even a marketplace in some cases.
MuvnDay's core competitors
Understanding our users.
6
APARTMENT TENANTS
5
PROPERTY
MANAGERS
Our biggest takeaway from the interviews was that we had two groups' conflicting needs to consider for designing one solution. Tenants would be the app's end-user, but if the app wasn't useful to PMs in managing the apartment complex, it wouldn't see the light of day even if it solved all our end-users' problems.
DO YOU PREFER TENANTS TO COMMUNICATE WITHYOU DIRRECTLY?
DO YOU PREFER COMMUNICATION AMONGST RESIDENTS?
PMs who preferred tenants to communicate directly with them
Tenants who preferred ways to directly communicate with the PM
PMs who preferred communication amongst residents
Tenants who thought it would be useful to have neighbors' contacts
50%
83%
25%
100%
DEFINE—
Bringing our users to life.
By affinity mapping our data from the interviews, we created two personas— Jane, our primary persona and Oliver, our customer persona. The personas helped us prioritize features that would keep both groups' needs at the center of the design.
Jane, The New Tenant
needs: quick access to information about the apartment facilities, best local eateries, dry cleaners, etc
wants: to buy pre-loved furniture from within the neighborhood to keep moving costs low
feels frustrated: that there is no way to hear back from the PM about apartment issues quickly
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Oliver, The Property Manager
needs: to update all tenants about apartment complex issues quickly
wants: information regarding facilities in the neighborhood and complex to be in one place to minimize inter-resident communication
feels frustrated: that tenants continue to ask him about information that was in the tour and welcome packet
The opportunity.
INFORMATION
Important information is spread across various platforms. Updates get buried under emails, contacts are on some elusive welcome packet and details on apartment facilities were long forgotten after the tour.
COMMUNICATION
PMs cannot afford to facilitate communication amongst tenants lest they rise in mutiny (i.e. to keep complaints at a minimum).
Keeping track of individual emails from tenants also becomes increasingly difficult for PMs of large apartment complexes leading to a cycle of dissatisfaction for tenants as well as PMs
Visualizing user flows.
Honing in on the opportunity, we crafted four primary user flows to address our two users' needs.
Establishing the information architecture of the app.
Creating the navigational hierarchy of the app was a challenge due to the sheer scale of the redesign and addition of new features. So, we turned to closed card-sorting to establish our sitemap.
Goals for the redesign.
To determine the design goals for the MVP, we used the MoSCoW prioritization method and began sketching the layout of our key features and screens. We also included Craig in helping us design the Homepage for the new tenant
EASY ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Feature:
My Apartment and Community Board will allow the PM to push information about the apartment complex and neighborhood which tenants will have easy access to as well
RELAY PROBLEMS QUICKLY
Feature:
PM Chat and Contact Form will facilitate the most reason tenants contact PMs — to submit requests and complaints
REMOVE NEED FOR SOCIALIZING
Feature:
Local Guide and For Sale (Marketplace) will provide tenants a platform to find deals and trade used items without needing continued contact with other tenants.
DESIGN —
Moodboarding to explore new brand colors.
Craig had mentioned he liked the Headspace app colors, because of its calmness, yet simplicity. Additional research on the teal and orange color palette revealed how it had the ability to engage and appealed to a younger audience as well which is why notable companies are found to be using it for their marketing.
This color palette would be able to communicate the tone of our brand voice which we agreed would be enthusiastic and welcoming.
Usability testing with mid-fis and high-fis.
Using our mid-fi and high-fi prototypes, we conducted two rounds of usability testing with potential users and collected quantitative and qualitative data.
Although 80% users were able to complete the task of finding local deals on the app with 2 or less misclicks, some revisions to designs were needed.
40% users were confused on what kind of updates the "Local" tab under My Community would show.
80% users couldn't differentiate between My Community and My Apartment in the nav bar.
40% users thought there were too many options in the nav bar.
100% users couldn't tell that you could hide My Move after your move in was complete.
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
We combined content for the Local and Events tabs under Events to simplify navigation.
We revisited the nav options and renamed My Community to Bulletin Board to clarify its function.
We added the ability to hide My Move once the user was moved in.
After signing in for the first time, users will now get onboarding tooltips informing them of how to hide the My Move nav option from Settings.
Handing off the final prototype.
With all iterations made, we handed off a detailed style guide and the final prototype to our client. Here are some of the key screens and a prototype walkthrough.
Prototype walkthrough of the redesigned MuvnDay app
DELIVER —
Recommendations for future iterations.
Due to the strict timeline we were on for this project, a lot of useful features were tabled as "nice-to-haves" during the feature prioritization phase. With a larger design team or with more time, we would these three additional features to increase user engagement.
FEATURE: REMINDERS FOR LATE BILL PAYMENTS
This feature will be a great value addition since users can also pay rent through the app.
FEATURE: RATINGS AND REVIEWS FOR LOCAL SERVICES
This will provide MuvnDay an ad-based revenue model and allow users to recommend local business to their neighbors.
FEATURE: ORDER AND PAY FOR SERVICES FROM THE APP
By partnering with other delivery apps, users will be able to avail discounts while MuvnDay enjoys another option for generating revenue.