HOMEMATCH
CASE STUDY
ROLE
DURATION
Solo UX/UI Designer
4 weeks
TOOLS
FIGMA
Year
10/01/2024
Design Challenge
DesignLab Academy Project
HomeMatch is a user-friendly app designed to seamlessly connect renters and landlords while streamlining the rental process. Renters can browse properties, view detailed landlord profiles, and apply for listings with ease. Landlords can review tenant applications, access comprehensive renter profiles, and approve applications effortlessly. The app also includes features for payment tracking and lease management, making it a comprehensive solution for handling all aspects of rental relationships. With intuitive navigation and a focus on transparency, HomeMatch simplifies renting for everyone involved.
Background
Renting an apartment has become easier with platforms like Zillow, Apartments.com, and Avail, but they still don’t solve all the problems renters and landlords face. People often have trouble trusting each other, managing leases, and keeping everything organized in one place. There’s a clear gap in the market for a platform that not only connects renters and landlords but also makes the process smoother, more transparent, and easier to manage.
Problem Statement
The rental process faces key challenges:
Trust Issues: Renters lack confidence in landlords, and landlords struggle to verify tenant reliability.
Fragmented Tools: Lease agreements, payments, and communication are spread across platforms, creating confusion.
Limited Personalization: Apps fail to offer tailored recommendations based on lifestyle, pet-friendliness, or commuting needs.
Lease Inflexibility: Early terminations penalize tenants, while landlords lose income during vacancies.
Inconvenience: Essential tools like secure communication, rent payments, and AI-powered searches are missing.
Solution
The app addresses key rental challenges by providing a complete platform for renters and landlords. It builds trust, streamlines processes, and enhances transparency, making renting more reliable, organized, and convenient for everyone.
Trusted Profiles: Verified profiles with background checks, references, and reviews to build trust.
Lease Management: Sign leases, store documents, and pay rent directly in the app.
Smart Search: AI recommendations tailored to renters’ preferences, like budget, location, and lifestyle.
Flexible Transfers: Easily transfer leases to avoid penalties or vacancies.
Built-In Communication: Secure chat and video calls between renters and landlords.
Transparency: Access property histories, tenant reviews, and maintenance records for informed decisions.
HomeMatch: Designed for Renters & Landlords
View, Edit & Add Properties in One Place
Monitor Earnings, Payments & Maintenance with Ease
Quick Access to Key Landlords Actions
Browse Apartments with Key Insights at a Glance
Financial & Rental History for Smart Tenant Screening
Effortless Apartment Search: AI, Filters & Location
Navigate with Ease: Home, Messages, Profile, Notifications, Transactions
Seamless Communication & Verified Trust at a Glance
Landlord Reviews: Build Trust Through Tenant History
To better understand the unique needs and challenges of both landlords and renters, I conducted two separate research studies. This approach allowed me to gather specific insights tailored to each group's goals, behaviors, and pain points, ensuring the app effectively addresses the needs of both parties. Additionally, I performed a competitive analysis to identify gaps and opportunities by evaluating existing rental platforms. This helped shape features that differentiate the app and address unmet needs in the market.
INTERVIEWS
Affinity Mapping
After conducting research, I created separate affinity maps for renters and landlords. I organized key quotes and insights into sticky notes, grouping similar issues to uncover recurring themes. This resulted in two maps, each with six key groups highlighting the core needs and challenges of each group, guiding the app's design.
Renters
Challenges in Renting
Desired Features
Verified Profiles
Tools and Platforms - What’s Liked
Tools and Platforms - What’s Disliked
Expectations
Key insights - Renters
In the define stage of HomeMatch, I began by crafting Point of View (POV) statements and How Might We (HMW) questions to clearly define user needs and uncover opportunities for impactful solutions. This user-centered approach provided a clear framework for understanding the problem and guided the ideation process. The outcome centered on two key HMW questions, ensuring the solutions directly tackle the most pressing challenges for renters and landlords.
Challenges in Renting:
Renters find it hard to trust landlords and often don’t have enough clear information about properties.
Managing applications, payments, and leases across different tools is frustrating and time-consuming.
Desired Features:
Renters want apartment recommendations that match their needs, like budget, location, and lifestyle.
They prefer one platform to handle everything—applications, communication, and payments.
Tools and Platforms:
Renters like simple tools but get annoyed when they have to use too many apps to complete tasks.
Expectations:
Renters want a rental app that is easy to use, transparent, and helps them feel confident about their choices.
POV & HMW
Key insights - Landlords
Design Process
EMPATHIZE
EMPATHIZE
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I analyzed platforms like Zillow, Apartments.com, and TurboTenant to identify gaps in existing solutions and ensure HomeMatch offers a unique and user-centered experience.
Finding Tenants:
Verifying tenants is challenging, and vacancies during turnovers cause financial losses.
Lease & Rent Management:
Managing leases and payments across platforms is time-consuming; landlords want automated solutions.
Tenant Verification:
Tools for background checks are lacking, making it hard to assess tenant reliability.
Platform Features:
Landlords need all-in-one platforms for lease management, communication, and rent tracking, with tools to reduce vacancies.
Expectations:
Landlords want simple, efficient, and transparent tools to save time and streamline processes.
Competitive Analysis
I analyzed three competitors — Zillow, Apartments.com, and TurboTenant—because they offer features relevant to renters and landlords, such as property searches, lease management, and tenant-landlord communication. HomeMatch aims to combine these services into one seamless platform, focusing on trust-building, personalized recommendations, and flexible lease options to better serve both parties.
From my competitive analysis, I found that while these platforms offer valuable tools, none provides a fully integrated solution addressing trust issues, personalized apartment searches, and flexible leasing. This highlights a clear market gap—no app currently offers a comprehensive end-to-end rental experience for renters and landlords alike.
DEFINE
DEFINE
I want to explore how verified profiles can build trust between renters and landlords. My focus is on creating profiles that include reviews, references, and background checks, giving both parties confidence in their decisions and addressing a critical gap in existing rental platforms.
PERSONA
After crafting the POV and HMW questions, I developed two personas—one for landlords and one for renters—to gain a deeper understanding of each group's unique needs, goals, and pain points. These personas represent the two primary user groups of HomeMatch, highlighting the distinct challenges they face in the rental process. By focusing on both perspectives, I ensured that my solutions are user-centered and effectively address the needs of both landlords and renters, creating a balanced and comprehensive platform.
Goals
Understand User Needs: Identify key challenges and expectations of renters and landlords.
Build Separate Personas: Create detailed profiles for both renters and landlords, focusing on their unique behaviors, preferences, and goals.
Discover Trust Barriers: Explore the causes of trust issues and potential solutions.
Identify Process Gaps: Pinpoint inefficiencies in communication, lease management, and apartment searches.
Explore AI Recommendations: Find out if users want personalized searches based on their preferences and needs.
Validate Core Features: Ensure features like flexible leases, secure chat, and transparent profiles meet user needs.
I conducted in-depth interviews with renters and landlords to understand their biggest frustrations, expectations, and behaviors when searching for housing or tenants.
Research methods
How might we design verified profiles with features like reviews, references, and background checks on the HomeMatch app to build trust between renters and landlords, helping them reduce uncertainty and make confident rental and leasing decisions?
I want to discover how personalized property recommendations and flexible lease options, like transfers, can meet the changing needs of renters and landlords. My focus is on using AI to provide tailored suggestions and features that reduce vacancy periods and enhance user satisfaction.
How might we design personalized property recommendations and flexible lease options, like transfers, on the HomeMatch app to meet the changing needs of renters and landlords, helping to reduce vacancy periods and enhance user satisfaction?
Landlords
Platform used & opinion
Challenges in Finding Tenants
Lease Management & Rent Collection
Tenant Verification & Background Checks
Desired Features for Management Platforms
Expectations
IDEATE
IDEATE
Business Goals & User Goals & Common Goals
In designing HomeMatch, I focused on both user goals and business goals, ensuring that the shared priorities of renters, landlords, and the platform’s objectives were kept at the core of the project.
Business Goals
Create an easy-to-use platform that works well for both renters and landlords.
Build trust between renters and landlords with transparent profiles, reviews, and background checks.
Make the rental process simpler with features like AI recommendations, secure lease signing, and payment tools.
Help landlords fill vacancies faster by connecting them with tenants quickly.
Improve user experience by combining all rental tools (listings, communication, payments) in one app.
Keep users coming back by solving the key problems renters and landlords face.
Verified Profiles
Renter profiles with reviews, references, and background checks to build trust.
Landlord profiles with reviews, references to build trust.
Secure Lease Signing
Digital lease signing with document storage for renters and landlords.
MUST HAVE FEATURES
Common Goals
Build Trust – Verified profiles, reviews, and background checks ensure security for renters and landlords.
Simplify Renting – Easy property searches, tenant screening, lease management, and payments in one place.
Save Time – Personalized suggestions and all-in-one management tools for efficiency.
Improve Communication – Secure messaging for seamless renter-landlord interactions.
Reduce Vacancies & Add Flexibility – Lease transfer options help renters move easily; landlords fill units faster.
Ensure Security – Safe payments and clear lease agreements protect both sides.
Be Transparent – Clear pricing, property details, and standardized lease terms build trust.
Keep Users Engaged – Regular feature improvements to enhance user experience and retention.
Feature Roadmap
The HomeMatch Feature Roadmap focuses on the most important features for both renters and landlords, ensuring clarity and prioritization. To avoid confusion, I created separate columns for each user group, making it easy to see which features cater to their specific needs.
The roadmap is divided into must-have, nice-to-have, surprising and delightful, and future additions, with key features like verified profiles and AI recommendations as top priorities. This structure ensures trust, personalization, and platform scalability, allowing HomeMatch to evolve and improve over time.
SITEMAP
I created two separate sitemaps for HomeMatch—one for renters and one for landlords—to ensure a clear and logical structure tailored to each user group. This approach helps avoid confusion and allows both parties to easily find what they need.
The sitemaps support smooth navigation, providing an intuitive experience by organizing key features like verified profiles, AI recommendations, and lease management efficiently. The result, visible on the screen, showcases how each section connects, ensuring all essential tools are easily accessible for a seamless rental process.
Landlords
USER FLOW
I designed the User Flow to map out the complete journey users take within HomeMatch.
This overview highlights key steps and decision points, ensuring that both renters and landlords can move seamlessly through the app's main sections, regardless of their starting point.
User flow: Verified Landlord Profiles for Renters
User flow: Verified Renter Profiles for Landlords
BRANDING
The design of HomeMatch features Inter for headers and Nunito for body text, ensuring a modern and readable layout. The color palette uses green for trust, yellow for vibrancy, and gray for neutrality, creating a balanced and approachable interface.
Simple, intuitive icons enhance usability, while the overall design prioritizes clarity and accessibility, aligning with the app’s goal of supporting renters and landlords seamlessly.
The HomeMatch logo is designed to show how the app helps people find the perfect apartment rental. The stacked apartment icon represents different housing options, while the curved swoosh symbolizes an easy, smooth rental process.I chose green and gray to create a feeling of trust and stability, with bold text for easy readability. This logo gives HomeMatch a strong and friendly identity, making apartment hunting simple and stress-free.
WIREFRAMES
I started by creating low-fidelity wireframes for HomeMatch's key screens, focusing on core tasks and making the layout clear and easy to use. I tested these wireframes with users to make sure the structure worked well and met their needs. After gathering feedback, I refined the designs and moved to high-fidelity wireframes, adding branding, visuals, and interactivity to create a polished prototype for usability testing. This process ensured the design was both simple and effective for renters and landlords.
Fonts
Efficient Matching – Renters need quick, preference-based property searches; landlords need reliable tenant screening.
Trust & Transparency – Verified profiles, reviews, and background checks for safer rentals.
Time-Saving & Personalization – AI-driven recommendations and streamlined management tools.
Secure Transactions – Safe lease signing and rent payment processing.
Effective Communication – In-app messaging for seamless renter-landlord interactions.
Flexibility & Vacancy Reduction – Lease transfer options and faster tenant turnover.
Clarity in Agreements & Pricing – Transparent rental terms to avoid misunderstandings.
Summary of usability test - 2 round - high fidelity wireframes
Usability test conducted with 7 participants.
Completion Rate: 100% of participants successfully completed their tasks without any assistance.
Time on Task: The average time to complete tasks was ~1 minute 10 seconds, well below the expected timeframe.
Overall Task Performance Rating: Participants rated their experience as excellent, with an average score of 5/5.
Satisfaction Rating: All participants rated the app’s clarity and usability at 5/5, showing high satisfaction with the design and functionality.
Summary of user testing - 1 round - low fidelity wireframs
Name Testing: "HomeMatch" is clear, but some associate it with buying. Suggest adding a slogan like "Find Your Perfect Rental."
"Hosted by" Label: Preferred over "Landlord" for being friendlier.
Usability: Profiles are easy to navigate; add icons for verification/reviews and a header to clarify user roles.
Communication Button: Most prefer it at the top for visibility.
Icons: Generally clear, but some need labels for clarity.
Additional Info: Suggestions include adding landlord details, renter references, and refining filter layout.
Key Recommendations
Add a slogan for clarity.
Keep the communication button at the top.
Label icons with multiple functions.
Add verification/review icons for renter profiles.
Keep design simple, focusing on essential details.
Strengths:
Clarity and Simplicity: The app’s navigation and task completion processes were intuitive, with no reported confusion.
Relevant Information: Both landlords and renters found profiles comprehensive and containing all necessary details.
Design Satisfaction: Several participants noted that the app’s interface looked "amazing" and didn’t require significant changes.
Task-Specific Feedback:
Landlord Tasks: Approving tenant applications was straightforward, with participants correctly identifying how to complete the process.
Renter Tasks: Sending apartment applications was clear, with participants utilizing the "Apply Now" button effectively.
Larger Action Buttons: Enlarge the "Apply Now" button to increase visibility and ease of access for renters.
Based on user testing, interviews, and research findings, the following two features have been identified as top priorities for future improvements to HomeMatch:
Lease Transfer:
Tenants expressed a need for flexibility in managing lease agreements. A lease transfer feature will allow tenants to transfer their lease to approved new renters, helping them avoid penalties and ensuring landlords minimize vacancies.
Payments Integration:
Both renters and landlords highlighted the importance of streamlining rent payments. An in-app payment system with reminders and tracking will provide a seamless and efficient way to handle transactions, reducing stress for both parties.
Revision 1
Enlarge the "Apply Now" button
Revision 2
Add more prominent alerts
PROTOTYPING
&
TESTING
&
PROTOTYPING & TESTING &
Key Suggestions & Priority Revisions
The HomeMatch project focuses on solving key challenges for renters and landlords with features like verified profiles, AI-powered recommendations, and in-app communication. Using a user-centered design process, including prototypes and usability testing, the app ensures trust, ease of use, and scalability.
While time limits meant I couldn’t include everything, such as lease transfers and payment integration, these features are priorities for the future. HomeMatch sets a strong foundation for a seamless and reliable rental experience for all users.
A key lesson from the HomeMatch project was the challenge of designing for two different user groups—landlords and renters. I had to create and test features for both sides, which meant doing everything twice. This taught me the importance of good planning, clear priorities, and staying flexible to make sure the app works well for everyone. It also showed me how important it is to focus on user needs when designing for multiple groups.
Designing for Two User Groups:
Balancing the needs of both landlords and renters was challenging, as it required creating and testing features for two distinct groups. This taught me the importance of planning and prioritizing effectively to ensure the app worked well for everyone.Early and Iterative Testing:
Conducting testing early in the low-fidelity stage and again on the high-fidelity prototype highlighted how valuable feedback is at every step. Early testing helped refine the structure, while later testing ensured the final design met user needs.Managing Time Constraints:
Working within time limits meant focusing on key features first, teaching me how to prioritize and adapt while keeping the project on track.
Conclusion
Future improvement
Color Palette
Enhanced Notifications: Add more prominent alerts or badges for landlords to indicate new tenant applications requiring review.
Lessons Learned
User Goals
Property Search (renters)
Personalized property search filters (e.g., budget, location, pet-friendliness, amenities).
AI-Powered Recommendations Tailored property suggestions based on renter preferences and behavior.
In-App Communication
Include a secure messaging system for renters and landlords, along with options for video calls or regular phone calls, to make communication more flexible and efficient.
Property Listings
Comprehensive property listings with detailed descriptions, photos, and pricing.
Payments Integration
In-app rent payment system with reminders and payment tracking.
Tenant Screening Tools (landlords)
A process or tool landlords can use to perform deeper checks on renters.
- Access to credit scores.
- Background and eviction history checks.
- Employment and income verification.
Lease Transfer
Ability for tenants to transfer their lease to an approved new tenant.
The Lease Transfer feature lets landlords approve a new tenant suggested by the current tenant, ensuring no gaps in rent payments.
Renters