Your Hamlet

Problem

For ordinary citizens, looking for an apartment is straightforward; for low-income urban dwellers and other people with socioeconomic problems, it isn't. These individuals face challenges viewing many websites to obtain information about low-income housing. Considering the education level, they need more than this to decipher convoluted steps to receive such benefits. They are often given traditional instruction via paper or PDF form, which is only possible with supervision.

Available state and city websites have intimidating disclaimers (about fraud), preventing the user/citizen from utilizing this legal and widely available state service.

In New York City, applying for low-income housing is a lengthy process, with a minimum of 20 steps per task, which doesn't give our users confidence or motivation to commit to this cumbersome task. Finding particular housing programs can be challenging even when the difficulty gets low.

Proposal

A platform that will enable low-income tenants to get matched with honest property owners. It will also allow Tenants and Landlords to rate each other and be the best match for a year lease arrangement. 

Design Process

🗺️ Plan
✍️ Describe 
🔎 Guide
🕶️ Model
🚀 Assess 

Plan

Targeted users:

Tenants, landlords, and property management companies. Scheduled interviews with 13 individuals: six tenants, four landlords, and one property manager.

Interview Opener: 

My name is Nick, and I'm a Product Designer. I'm doing real estate research and trying to help low-income tenants get swift approval for safe and sound apartments within New York City and, potentially, other major urban areas in our country. I'm also cooperating with proper landlords and management companies open to working with the community and helping.

Notable Quotes: 

Mike Landlord: "My tenant shows no interest in and value in his rental unit. If the individual from the next door accidentally rings the wrong doorbell, the tenant immediately turns off his doorbell (forcefully) to stop the ringing. He claims the doorbell wakes him up unnecessarily in the early morning. This instance is the wrong approach, incurring an unnecessary expense for me."

snippet from the user interview recording.

Tine Tenant: "Lack of landlord availability when facing repair needs."

Nathan Tenant: "I am concerned about the place fitting my budget and only focus a small attention on the condition. In my tenant experience, landlords needed more time to keep their properties up."

Describe

In describing the setting, I make lighting demos. Lightning Demos are quick sketches based on references that allow me to observe, learn, and perhaps reference already established patterns that can be ideal for my product to come. 

Products and Websites I've referenced are but not limited to: 

• SnapInspect
• RedFin
• HomeSnap
• Landlord123
• LandlordRanking
• Zillow
• Trulia
• StreetEasy

Below are examples of my lightning demos:

Guide

In this particular segment, I started building flow and low-fidelity wires based on the findings of my user interviews. I also researched what is happening in the local political climate with city low-income properties. This quote resonated with me. 

Low-income housing findings. 

"New York City is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, and while Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to create and preserve 300,000 units of affordable housing by 2026, as part of his Housing New York 2.0 agenda, some argue that the initiative isn't serving the city's extremely low-income earners."

Preservation of 300,000 affordable housing units is failing and threatened to be taken away in five boroughs. 

Flow: 

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Model

First Iteration High Fidelity Prototype

Second Iteration High Fidelity Prototype

Latest Iteration High Fidelity Prototype

Assess

In this final and last step of the product design process, we interviewed users for feedback on the platform's latest iteration. Below is a snippet from the one interview with Zoe and her feedback from clicking through the app.

"Looks like a private product, so many government products are dated. Streamlines process due to exciting visuals! The most significant break in trusting the government is how confusing and complicated it is to deal with it."