Free Homes is an organization set up to help people find their choice of homes online in the metropolis of Lagos state. This product helps users find homes and bridges the gap between property owners (landlords/landladies) and the renters or buyers of their properties, by eliminating the society-menacing factor of the supposed house agents in Lagos and its environs.
Their target audience is working adults between 20-60years who want to find homes that suit their needs and interests.
Users want to find homes that suit their needs without the involvement of house agents.
Users also want to have detailed information about the property they want to acquire before going for a physical check.
Users want a mobile app and website with a smooth user experience and appealing interface.
The ultimate goal of the product is to meet users' needs by solving the problems discovered through their pain points during research. This can be done by creating a user-friendly dedicated mobile app and website with an appealing user interface and seamless user experience.
I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users (fictional) I am designing to solve their problems. Through research, I was able to identify two primary user groups. The first is a user group of users who want to find homes without the involvement of house agents, while the other is a user group of users who want to find homes with their full details before they go for a physical check of the homes.
The research confirmed the initial assumption that adults want to see detailed information about properties that interest them before going for a physical check.
1. Users want a seamless experience while interacting with the app or website.
2. Adults who need new homes are frustrated with the extortion by house agents.
3. Adults want quality homes in a friendly and secure neighbourhood.
Aremu is a freelance data analyst who needs to find a new home online without involving the house agents because they do not want to pay too much for what they need to get.
Amina is a shop owner and a single mom of two kids, who needs to see detailed information about the homes they find online before they go for a physical inspection of the homes because they do not want to waste time and resources looking at homes that would not interest them.
This sitemap was created to enhance website navigation. This can help me as the designer to design a site navigation that makes it easy for users to complete tasks and quickly.
Paper wireframes were sketched for each page. This is a rough outlook on what the website pages would look like.
The paper wireframes of the dedicated mobile apps, the website on the smallest screen which is the mobile screen, and also for the desktop screen.
The mobile screen pages were created before moving on to the desktop screen for our responsive website because the technique adopted was designing for progressive enhancement. This is because the research showed that users of the website version would mostly interact with the product on their mobile devices.
Study type - Moderated Usability Study
Location - Lagos, Nigeria.
Participants - 5 participants each for mobile app and website.
Length - 15minutes
1. How long does it take participants to use the explore option on the app to find a house or apartment of their choice?
2. How long does it take participants to use the search navigation on the website to find a house or apartment of their choice?
3. Which option between navigation menu or search option are participants finding more comfortable to complete the task of finding their preferred property?
4. What features in the app and website do participants find great interest in?
1. Headings with different-sized texts and weights for clear hierarchical arrangement.
2. Legible typefaces and fonts.
3. Considered accessibility and inclusive design in the use of colour for the website.
1. Conduct follow-up usability studies to know where the website and app might be lagging or require new updates. This is because the user experience field is dynamic.
2. Improve the website and apps to keep up with market trends as well as branding and marketing of the product.