Jenn, Real Estate
Principle Product Designer
iOS Experience Strategy, Visual Design & Messaging
The founding team of real estate iOS app Jenn, sought branding and user experience expertise to iterate on their interface designs and establish an MVP product launch strategy.
After assessing what was built of the app and reviewing existing design variations, the recommendation was made to take a step back and look at the potential user base more holistically to understand their needs and problems. We began with a series of design thinking and sketching exercises to brain-dump what was known and where there were currently gaps in the user experience.
Once an understanding of the end user was gained we also explored the customer journey and user flows along with a site map to give a macro view of the product. Then an exploration of the visual design was done including a moodboard to understand why so many variations of design had already been explored.
Top Skills: Persona Development, Design Strategy, Product Design, Product Strategy, IA/UX/UI, Agile Practices, Project Management, Visual Design, Branding
Project Goal
The Jenn founders were working with an off shore engineer on product build yet work on product strategy was not yet in place.
We focused upon a holistic understanding of user experience and product development strategy.
The user base had been validated through previous research efforts.
Persona Development
The team had not been operating in a user-first approach so our first task was to understand the potential customers of Jenn.
Customer Journey
Some of the app was already built and designs created yet no one had looked at the user journey so we collaborated on this.
The approach of considering a user experience had not been taken so this exercise was eye-opening
The founders participating in our activity
Journey Story
Took information from our sketching sessions to define a shareable user journey.
Site Map & User Flows
There was no documentation of a site map for this app nor a consideration to the user flow through tasks, we started this as a whiteboarding exercise.
From the whiteboard to Axure we created an interactive site map to be shared with dev/product teams:
Part of the reason for this exercise was to show how much was going into the app so we could prioritize features for an MVP launch that is leaner than this. The goal was to test with users in prototype to learn priority.
We started thinking about the dual-sided application model and began exploring user experience of the Real Estate Agent persona.
Usability Prep
The leanest approach with design execution was to revise current visual designs, while streamlining the experience based upon our user experience exploration.
With the goal of testing & validating our prototype with users.
Moodboarding Look & Feel
We collaboratively reviewed a moodboard to gain direct feedback about what was working and not from current and past designs. We also looked at competitors and inspiration to gain a shared alignment on look & feel.
UI & Visual Design
Below are the variations of visual design from before I started to the approved look for launch.
We also explored the logo & splash screen:
Prototyping for Usability
The goal was to take designs into user research and prototypes prepared for testing.
Results
To my knowledge, this version of Jenn never made it to market. Yet there was reward in sharing the process, strategizing for iOS and defining a lovely visual design.
The company is still in business today but Jenn has been renamed and app development status is unknown.