Discovery

Rentdrop approached us to design an application for Landlords to manage their properties and collect the rent easily without any hassle. The ultimate aim of this application is to help landlords reduce the dependency of a middleman to manage their properties and directly monitor rent and maintenance payments of the tenants. This application also aims to act as a reminder tool for tenants, to make the payment on time and display all the necessary payment history.

For our team, the key challenge was to design an application for landlords who own multiple units in different properties, with specific features like setting up lease agreements, managing the vacant units, etc that are useful for them. We had to figure out the features that help them to manage their tenants, payments and properties.

Research

Our goal of this project was to design a go-to management tool for landlords who rent out multiple units. Rentdrop team gave us an insightful idea of their business model and objectives of the product. We started off with researching the difficulties faced by landlords while managing multiple properties. Then, we planned to address a solution based on the problems they face.

Design

• User Flows
• Information Architecture
• Wireframe
• Visual Design
• Clickable Prototypes
• Usability Testing

A: UX Research

From there, our team of researchers and designers held a brainstorming session to discuss the relevant features that can make this an ‘easy-to-manage’ app. As we had prior extensive experience in the Fintech domain, it was easier for us to identify the right factors when designing the payment features. Four features that can be added to this app were:

1. Introduce an internal payment gateway for the tenants to pay landlords easily.
2. An integration feature where landlords can list their vacant units in a dedicated real estate marketplace.
3. A feature to add and record lease documents securely.
4. Visual representation of the collected and pending rents for better understanding.

B: User Persona

We created user personas of various types of landlords and tenants to step out of ourselves and understand their goals, pain points and behavioral patterns. This helped us to design a product that satisfies the user’s needs. This also helped us to prioritize features based on how well it addresses the concerns of the users.

A: User Flows

To begin the design process, we laid out a flow that the users take in the product to reach a specific goal they have. For the landlords, their goal is to to track their collected and pending rents and notify the tenants if not paid. Another important goal they have is to document every information they have about the units and its tenants. We planned out a series of interactions by achieving these goals in the most comfortable and organized way.

B: Information Architecture

It is crucial to structure a SaaS product according to the priorities of the users. With Information Architecture in hand, it is easier to make key decisions for adding new features and to update the existing ones. We’ve structured the product in such a way that when a user onboards, he immediately gets educated on the product and its significant features.

C: Wireframe

When creating designs for solutions that involve monetary transactions, it is essential to nurture trust and loyalty within users. Seamless usability and accessibility are the two of the main factors when building trust. We focused on a simple and minimalistic approach that gives importance to easy navigation and accessibility, by highlighting the important features each page conveys.

D: Visual Design

We adopted a minimalistic approach while designing the interface of the product. The reason behind was to highlight the main features of the product like unit details, tenant details and payment. The core idea was to help the users to finish an action in just a few taps. Adding subtle color tones worked well to keep the interface light and intuitive. The typography style has been chosen keeping legibility in mind.