Website Updated UI
Role
UX/UI Designer
Collaborators
Courtney | UX Designer
Michelle | UX Designer
Applications
Figma
Adobe Creative Cloud
Duration
4 Weeks
Client
At Ease Rentals Corporation (AE) provides temporary rental accommodations to military members, federal employees, and government contractors when traveling on official orders. In accordance with federal travel regulations, rental properties must meet specified criteria for federal employees to be eligible for reimbursement of expenses incurred during the course of travel. AE ensures properties are compliant with federal regulations while providing customers with reliable, low-rate rental options and exquisite customer service.
Project Overview
I was requested to help improve the usability of the platform for customers. I focused on addressing the needs of service members and their families
Client Objectives
I was asked to provide AE with recommendations pursuant to AE’s objectives of improving usability. The project addressed the following objectives as requested by the client:
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Empathize with the users (learning about the audience)
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Define the problem (identifying the users’ needs)
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Ideate (generating ideas for design)
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Prototype (turning ideas into concrete examples)
Week 1
Understand Product Vision
Following the kickoff call and research online, I began to understand the problem At Ease was addressing. As I was doing research I began to formulate ideas on how they could design their platform to be engaging and meet the needs of their users.
Week 2
Heuristic Analysis
After the kickoff call, I conducted a heuristic analysis for 3-5 direct and indirect companies - deep-diving into their design to identify what makes their features unique. I considered how people would engage with the platform and investigated opportunities for At Ease to provide a highly intuitive and usable product while differentiating themselves from well known competitors in the space.
Week 3
Design Audit & Recommendations
In week 3, I reviewed the screens that were created by previous designers and I worked on conducting an analysis of the existing UX/UI to identify the most critical improvement areas. I then compiled the findings and prioritized areas for improvement.
Design Audit Recommendations by Priority
During this time I also read over user interviews that were conducted by UX designers Courtney Lyons and Michelle Chin. That information was helpful in my design audit and also in the redesigning of screens.
Week 4
Design Screens & Prototype
After the design audit, I shared my designs with Anthony, the CEO.
I created a host journey map with the insights from the user interviews (conducted by UX designers, Courtney and Michelle)
Host Journey Map
Mood Board
I then created a mood board of ideas that he could look at and see what stood out to him in terms of layout and flow. Once that was decided, I produced mockups to showcase how the product could look to make it easier and more compelling for users to utilize.
High Fidelity Screens
After the competitive research, I realized that putting a potential property on a hosting site is a long process. I wanted to address this and brought up the matter with my mentor. He agreed we should make the long process smoother and quicker. We discussed a short list in the beginning that allows the user to prepare themselves with the proper information to ease the process.
Another item I wanted to help with was the host dashboard. From the interview insights, a lot of users have trouble with an easily accessed and usable calendar when it comes to hosting properties and organizing bookings. So I was able to help design a dashboard for At Ease property hosts.
High Fidelity Screens
After developing my brand style guide and conducting guerilla tests, I moved onto creating my high fidelity prototype of the app. I went directly off my
lo-fidelity prototype (with the test results in mind) and edited the colors and revised based on my findings from user tests.
Final Prototype
Key Takeaways
Working with Anthony was a rewarding experience. I also appreciated being able to collaborate with other UX designers. Courtney is from the West coast, and Michelle is from Hong Kong, based on those time zones, I had to work meetings and collaborations around multiple time zones. That was challenging and rewarding.
I learned a lot about communication and meeting deadlines. Overall, I enjoyed this process and believe it helped me become a better designer.