Property Vault is a secure web application that was created with a specific focus on the Real Estate market to help Property Managers store, access and share property & tenant information in one place.
Design Roles
UX Research & Strategy
Information Architecture
Branding
Visual Design
Wireframes & Prototypes
User Testing
Deliverables
User Surveys & Personas
Competitive Analysis
Logo & Brand Style Guide
User Stories & Flows
Wireframes & Prototypes
Usability Testing
Project Duration
2 months
Tools
Google Forms & Draw.io
Balsamiq & Usability Hub
Figma & InVision
Overview
The Problem
Most online storage & collaboration solutions are too broad and lack focus to solve a problem for a specific industry. This oftentimes leads to user confusion making it difficult to understand how to apply these tools in the business environment.
The Solution
Through comprehensive user research, competitive analysis and user testing, we created Property Vault - a secure online storage web application with a specific focus on the Real Estate Market. Our process (detailed in the next section) found that our users wanted an easy way to store, access and share property & tenant information in one place.
Discovery Phase
User Research
Before diving into any sketches or design tools, it was very important to become familiar with our potential users and better understand their needs. Below are the key survey takeaways:
72% of participants believed the most important features are:
Sharing files with others.
Controlling who has access to view/edit files.
Storing files/folders & organizing them by category.
Accessing content from anywhere with an Internet connection.
90% of participants will use a Desktop or Laptop to access the online storage service.
95% of participants liked Email as the preferred method to share files/folders.
79% of participants liked the idea of using a Property Management Cloud Storage Service
Competitive Analysis
To view more details, click on the button below:
User Personas
After analyzing the user survey results, I was able to validate many assumptions, understand user demographics and preferences of users in our target market. With this information, the following user personas were born:
Tom
Role: Property Manager
Age: 43
Location: Austin, TX
Gender: Male
Motivation
Tom currently stores all property/tenant information in a file cabinet and local hard drive. It would be great to have a solution to store & organize everything in the cloud with the option to share relevant information with certain tenants or communities.
Frustrations
Takes a long time to keep everyone informed
Difficult keep backup copies of important files
Hard to keep everything organized
Doesn’t know who has seen the information shared
“If I had a solution to upload, organize and share property & tenant information, it would make my life a lot easier”
Mike
Role: Tenant
Age: 18
Location: Austin, TX
Gender: Male
Motivation
Mike currently has to go to the leasing office to inquire about the lease contract, maintenance requests and BBQ pit reservations. He also needs to visit the billboard to stay informed of future tenant meetings.
Frustrations
Hates having to walk to the leasing office to reserve bbq pit and to stay informed of what’s going on around the property
Can’t view leasing contract online
“If I could have a single place online to take care of my needs around the property, I could spend my time more efficiently at school and with my friends”
Branding & Identity
The Logo
After meeting with the client to get a good feel for what they were looking for and stand for with their brand, I started with the following sketches for their logo:
Once the client showed a preference on what type of logo they liked, the following refined options were created:
Brand Style Guide
After sketching and defining the target market for this product and the feelings the client wanted to convey, the following style guide was created:
Information Architecture
User Stories
Below are the user flows for our Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that represent the most important needs of our user personas:
As a property manager, I want to sign up for the cloud service
As a tenant, I want to view a file/folder that was shared with me
As an admin, I want to configure available roles & access control
User Flows
With the information gathered in user research, the next step was to clearly document what our web application will do. Based on this, I put myself in the shoes of our user personas to create the following user stories:
Sign up process
View file/folder shared with tenant
Configure roles & access control
Sitemap
Now that we have a clear idea on what our web application will do with the research we performed, user stories and user flows, in this next step I created the following sitemap:
Pen & Paper Wireframes
This phase of the project was the first attempt at visualizing all of the abstract concepts conceptualized before. To keep the creativity at its best, the following wireframes were created with pen & paper to figure out the best possible layouts to apply to this product:
Digital Wireframes
With a better idea on which sketch layouts worked best, the following digital wireframes were created using Balsamiq:
Prototypes
Using Figma & InVision and referencing the brand style guide, the following prototypes were created:
Preference A/B Tests
To help make specific design decisions, the following preference tests were performed:
The Logo
The logo with the lock performed better and the difference was 95% likely to be statistically significant. This means that we can be confident that it is actually better, and not performing better due to random chance.
Desktop Dashboard Home
The first version of Desktop Dashboard Home performed better, and the difference is 90% likely to be statistically significant. This means that we can be fairly confident that it is actually better, and not performing better due to random chance.
Mobile Dashboard Home
Mobile Home version 2 performed better, and the difference is 90% likely to be statistically significant. This means that we can be fairly confident that it is actually better, and not performing better due to random chance.
Conclusion
This project was a wonderful experience and I am very proud I helped Property Vault become a web application that makes it easy for Property Managers to keep property & tenant files organized in one place and have granular control on the files they wish to share.
At the beginning of the project, it seemed like it would be difficult to help the client given the lack of direction and so many unanswered questions. However, following UX/UI best practices, I was able to find focus and create a product that solved real problems for specific types of users in the real estate industry. Below are images that show the evolution of the web application throughout the project:
