Rentin

A rental application aimed at international students

UIUX Design/ Data-driven research/ Product design/ Hi-Fi prototype

Struggling to secure accommodation as an international student while still overseas?

Welcome to Rentin – a platform crafted to support international students as they commence their journey in a new country. Our focus lies in addressing the unique needs of those who are still overseas, facilitating a seamless transition into their new accommodations.

Check the design 👉🏻

DURATION

Nov 2023 / 2 months
April 2024 / 1 month (UI redesign)

CHALLENGE

As international students embark on their journey to a new country alone, finding the first accommodation from their home country presents a significant challenge. With the internet rife with fraudulent listings, and the inability to physically inspect rooms, making a decision becomes even more daunting

DELIVERABLE

👉🏻 Data-driven UX research process

👉🏻 An application prototype aiming to solve the problem among international students with accommodation hunting

ROLE

UX & Product Designer
UI Designer

Background research

As international students, we struggled to find the initial place to live before we came to a new country. To understand how common this problem was, we did some desk research. We found out that from January to August 2023, over 524,500 international students came to Australia. A lot of them had bad experiences finding their first place to stay. Some had to deal with crowded or unsafe places, while others were mistreated by landlords or roommates. Some even paid for rooms that didn't exist. This inspired us to create a solution, especially for international students still abroad looking for their first home in a new country. We focused on Sydney, Australia, to start. To learn more about our demographic’s difficulties, we conducted more research and concluded the main reasons as follows…

Deep-dive into the problem

We began by interviewing international students to grasp their motivations and explore their experiences in finding housing. Subsequently, we organized the wealth of data through card sorting and used empathy maps to help us uncover our target users' frustrations and potential opportunities.

Problem statement

An international student preparing to move to a new country faces challenges in finding suitable accommodation. With no local connections, they fear ending up with incompatible flatmates and are overwhelmed by the online rental market's potential for scams and misinformation.

Opportunities & Ideations

This is the part I find most exciting. After uncovering our users' pain points and understanding the reasons behind their fears and frustrations, we define specific problems and kickstart the brainstorming process to generate ideas for our solution. These ideas represent the opportunities for us to deliver a superior experience.

Wireframe & user flow

Next, I sketch the low-fidelity wireframes to clarify the features I want to include in the app and create a simple user flow to ensure that all pages are necessary and serve a purpose.

Feature analysing

After defining the features, I begin by analyzing the nature of each problem and its solution to assist me with the following design prioritization. For example, the need for flatmate matching is to have more choices in accommodation and find suitable flatmates to reduce conflict, which is quite clear. However, the solution for increasing the matching degree is not as clear. In this case, this feature needs more ideation and testing rather than a definitive definition.

Prototyping

The users of this product are international students planning to relocate to a new country while still residing overseas. The core values revolve around simplicity, simplicity, and simplicity. Many rental apps inundate users with excessive textual information. However, what users truly require is authentic content such as images, videos, real-time 3D environments, or in-line inspections. Particularly for users who may face language barriers, overwhelming amounts of text can be unhelpful at best.

Main Features

The community assists users who are still unfamiliar with the new environment by allowing them to directly share accommodations they are interested in within the community group to find flatmates or even just suggestions.
Flatmate matching aims to help users find a suitable future flatmate. To avoid meaningless random suggestions, users need to set up their preferences first, allowing the system to provide matched flatmates.
Previous tenants' reviews can aid users in deciding whether they should consider a place. Additionally, users can contact them for further information through the chat room.
Online inspections can be booked directly through the page. Users will receive reminders on the landing page and can also add the event to their phone calendar.
Users can provide their identity information to gain more ID check scores, ensuring the safety of their information. The system will verify their authenticity, making it easier for users to distinguish who they should trust.

UI Iteration - Accessibility

After the initial outcome of the interface, I conducted another iteration to address accessibility issues identified using A11y standards. The following are the main changes on the landing page and the community page:

landing page

Before

Insufficient color contrast for buttons.
Distracting background.
Overpowering top navigation bar with unclear CTA.

After

Simplified color scheme to highlight actionable items.

Community page

Before

Unbalanced color ratio.

After

Applied the 60-30-10 rule to reduce visual fatigue.
Introduced a floating button for a cleaner interface and better accessibility.

Usability Feedback

Positive

Participants can grasp the product's aim without any prior explanation.
Over 70% find it straightforward, smooth, and clean.
This fosters a tighter community network and has the potential to prevent scams. (Exploring the notion that community opinions can aid in scam prevention is intriguing and merits further exploration.)
The Flatmate matching and Community features are novel in a rental application, but they are appreciated by international students.

Improvement

The flexibility of the rent agreement may be considered.

Takeaway

The defining problem and ideation phases were the standout moments in this project. During interviews, it was fascinating to see how participants shared similar frustrations and desires. Understanding the motivations behind their fears and wishes was key to finding solutions. For example, some participants mentioned wanting to live alone because of past bad experiences with flatmates. This insight guided us towards finding ways to match them with more compatible flatmates.

Once I had a clear problem statement, I moved into the ideation phase. This was where I could start brainstorming and forming hypotheses. Developing a minimum viable product (MVP) allowed me to test these hypotheses and see which ones held up in practice. During the Lo-Fi prototype testing with Maze, I received some feedback on content aspects, which gave me an awareness of the importance on following content testing.

Prototyping was an iterative process with lots of testing and refinement. Every feature and button had to have a clear purpose. For instance, I decided to include a "Home button" on pages where users couldn't navigate back directly. But later, I removed the one on the "Inspection Booking" page to keep users focused on completing the task at hand. And these small details all need testing, and constant iteration to make product design valued.

What's next?

For this project, the next step is to conduct thorough testing of the content. Currently, some content is based on competitive products, it's essential to gather feedback from users, developers, and stakeholders to refine and improve these features.

Additionally, I plan to explore the market potential and consider the broader implementation of the product. Given the resources available for a rental service, I envision this product as a sub-product within a comprehensive rental app tailored for international students. While the app will offer simplified services to address their specific needs, the housing sources will be integrated from the main app.

As a UI/UX designer, I believe it's crucial to consider the business value alongside user-centered design principles. By aligning both aspects, we can create a profitable and sustainable product that meets the needs of our users while also driving business growth.