As a student of UI Specialization at CareerFoundry, I chose to work on a Real Estate webapp for the UX/UI Case-study. The project brief included business goals, a persona, user stories etc. And that served as the starting point for my work.
To design a webapp for young property investors, in a way that helps them buy perfect properties for themselves and their families, as comfortably and economically as possible.
My initial vision was to make the interface look serious professional and minimalistic. But that was also true of most of the property webapps currently in the market.
Now ever since the purchasing power of people has increased, there has been an evolving trend of young investors buying properties. This made me further think as to how to design an app, that is also going to look youthful while maintaining the essence of minimalism as well as a professional feel.
Given the current property investment scenario, I was inquisitive about how a new brand can carve itself a niche in the already booming sector.
I studied Hypofriend, Immobilienscout24 and immowelt webapps.
Here, I observed what the main features were, that users indulged in, how they used these features and what set each of these brands apart from one another. I also created SWOT profiles for each of these apps to further understand opportunities and organize my research. Below you will the SWOT analysis of the Hypofriend webapp.
I found oppportunities,
-to build an end-to-end webapp, which included mortgage suggestions through specific user inputs.
-to provide scheduling and booking/cancelling of property viewing requests.
-to be able to bookmark and share property listings.
With the help of my earlier research, and the given data such as the needs and goals of Rashida, I was able to generate basic functions for my MVP. These functions were then transformed into user flows, as shown below.
From these userfows I was then able to start designing wireframes. I started with low fidelity paper sketches before moving onto mid and high fidelity wireframes on Figma. Below, you will find some of my initial sketches and wireframes.
Since I was designing a webapp, I also started working on some breakpoint versions for my screens. Below, you will find ipad and Desktop versions of few of the screens.
Before I present to you my High Fidelity Wireframes, I would like to take you through my UI Design process.
Since I knew who exactly i was designing for, my design process was not very complex. Purple Stone Properties app is designed specifically for new and young investors who like indulging in technology both for comfort as well as entertainment. This calls for a design with colors that pop, modern and clear typography, attractive graphics, engaging interactions and seamless transitions.
Designing for Purple Stone Properties has been an enriching and a great learning experience.
I learnt that UX research not only informs the UX process, it very much informs the UI Designs as well. Therefore, a thorough research work takes the design an extra mile forward with lesser trial and error.
Besides that, I found how absolutely imperative it’s to have an outside eye (and/or collaborators) to help with seeing the design in it’s real form. I was lucky to have my mentor look at my designs frequently and provide me with neccessary inputs that which helped me fine tune the design consistently.
