Unilodge Dec 2017 – Aug 2018
Project
Unilodge Student Services app is a communication and property management platform for student accommodation across Australia and New Zealand.
Studio Role
Project Lead , Senior UX Designer and Frontend Dev in a team of 9.
Brief
Design and develop a student services app and property management platform to streamline and replaced existing property management processes required between residents and property managers, while supporting the communication the networking of community spirit programs and resident care requirements.
Tech
XD, Illustrator, GIT, Sass, HTML, javascript, LAMP Stack using custom model driven MVP Framework, Cordova, iOS and Android. Jira and Confluence
Details
Leading a team of 6, comprehensive UX scoping and wireframes outlining the project requirements revealed a key product breakpoint was the low user engagement in the core user stories required to replace the existing property management processes.
Further UX research developed a strategy to create a marketplace channel of student offers and discounts, event promotion and a booking engine. Leveraging the value of the Unilodge customer base of student residents in Australian major cities to form strategic partnerships with companies that wish to target the student demographic.
The content and features of the channel would be developed in response to in app user feedback. The Marketplace would be then gradually accented by legal and residential processes required by unilodge customers, that replace the existing property management process.
Comprehensive wireframes were created for a Student App, and Property Manger/ Corporate Portals. These were designed to mapped to project milestones and sprint development cycles.
Lo-Fi proof of concept prototypes were designed in adobe XD and targeted Hi-Fi screens were created based upon corporate branding for key stakeholder approval and guidelines for translation into a saas stylesheet and UI components.
Reflection
When designing a service that requires behavioral change, it is of fundamental importance to have a compelling reason to inspire customer engagement. Without this, the return on investment for designing and developing a complex system becomes questionable.
Thoughtful planning can find the sweet spot between the stakeholder’s desired outcomes and meeting the customers inspiration to adopt new behaviors.
Implementing strategic development cycles that gradually release new product features in sync with the level of customer engagement can quantify the investment as the desired results are achieved.