Find your future neighborhood
Wander is a free, reliable, data-driven, all-in-one platform that helps people quickly find their best place to live.
Interface Design | Research | Branding
Context
Kelly is going remote with a new job in the immediate future. She’s looking for a new place to live. She has some ideas but just doesn’t know any of the areas very well.
After a google search, she isn’t finding anything other than some sites that seem hard to search and sort to his particular tastes.
Timeline
6 Weeks
Team
Solo
My Role
UX/UI + Brand Designer
Tools
Figma, Balsamiq
Optimal Workshop
The Problem
Few platforms inform and guide people when looking for a place to call home in which they are genuinely confident.
The Objective
Research, strategize, and design a reliable product experience to help people find their perfect neighborhood by asking users what they want and providing them with an all-in-one platform focused on robust, user-friendly information, verified reviews, and local real estate.
EMPATHIZE. CONCEPTUALIZE. DESIGN.
I lacked an understanding of customer wants, needs, and expectations.
I needed to learn users' frustrations and pain points when searching for their ideal location and area. I also needed to learn what they wanted to be able to do while using an area-searching platform. What did they need to help them find their ideal city?
I Jumped right in with an intensive 2-week research sprint.
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Competitive Analysis
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5 user interviews
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SWOT analysis
Competitive Analysis
To better understand the best places to live products, I did a SWOT analysis on competitors and conducted marketplace research at the beginning of the project.
Key Takeaways
The top two competitors, Niche and Teleport didn’t use a clear and engaging way to find you the best place to live.
Teleport was focused on finding you the best place to live but presented the information and data in a way that made it hard to understand.
The top competitor, Niche, didn’t focus on the best places to live.
Niche wasn’t focused enough on budget, climate, outdoors, and recreational aspects, nor was it all concerned about culture and diversity, which was a big concern for users.
User Interviews
To find the answers, I interviewed 5 participants to find out more about how people buy and manage their insurance. I asked them questions like:
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Before your most recent move, do you recall your process when searching for a new place?
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What types of things do you look for when considering moving to a new place?
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How did you look for or find the best place to live for you? (eg. Websites, word of mouth, recommendations, physical exploration)
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Before moving to a location, did you use any search engines to look for places to live?
Key Takeaways
Users cared about was affordability, proximity to stores and transportation
Users wanted to make sure where they lived was safe, clean and had fair weather.
Users had searched “Best places to live” but could not remember any of those sites and where more reliant on Real Estate apps, family, and physically visiting places before moving.
Affinity Map
EMPATHIZE. CONCEPTUALIZE. DESIGN.
User Persona
I synthesized the results of my research and created a user persona, Kelly. Kelly's goals, needs, frustrations, and motivations helped me make crucial design decisions.
Some exciting takeaways were:
Areas that tend to offer the things she desires, like proximity to shopping and culture, are sometimes above her budget
Climate change issues are a concern and could narrow her options.
Relies more upon word of mouth for awareness of potential areas to move.
Business & User Goals
Before I started to explore the solutions, I revisited Wandr's business goals with the Persona’s goals in mind and prioritized the product features based on the Project Goals Diagram.
Feature Roadmap
Priority
Feature Name
Description
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P1 - Must Have
P2 - Nice to Have
P4 - Can come later
P2 - Nice to Have
P2 - Nice to Have
P2 - Nice to Have
P2 - Nice to Have
P2 - Nice to Have
P3 - Surprising & Delightful
P3 - Surprising & Delightful
P4 - Can come later
P4 - Can come later
P4 - Can come later
P4 - Can come later
P4 - Can come later
P4 - Can come later
P4 - Can come later
Log In/ Create Account
Preference Quiz
Search
Filters
Save Favorites
Best Matches Page
Compare Selections
Map View
Save Favorites
Account Page/Profile
Quiz
Reviews
Partner Links
Mobile First/Responsive
Blog/Articles
Advertising
Ranking
About Us
Budget Calculator
Back Button
Contact Us
Grading System
Newsletter
Share
App
Chat Help
Social
An account page to access saved searches etc
The Quiz focuses on filtering down user preferences in the community
You can search for an area by keyword
After searching or completing the quiz, users may filter amenities
Save your favorite places on your profile page
The page that is displayed after an examination or search
Saved some communities you like; you can select multiple and compare.
A map view button to show the city's proximity and real estate
Save your favorite places on your profile page
Account Page/Profile
Take a quiz that filters preferences and matches with a place to live.
Read approved and verified reviews from the locals or visitors
Link third-party sites to connect users to local realtors
Built for mobile and responsive for desktop and tablets
Have articles to read more in-depth about the best places
Communities & businesses advertise cities & drive a revenue stream
Use data and algorithms to rank cities based on gov data
Company statement of what we do to help you and how we do it.
Allows plant parents to search for and trade plants locally
Function to go back to the previous page w/o resetting their search.
Websites contact info
Grade based on your algorithm for things like Crime & Education
Users can subscribe to get updates on new features
Users can share their favorites & results.
App that isn’t directly accessible on the internet can be used offline.
Sticky Help Button with automation for questions
Link to Reddit or social site to get unfiltered reviews
With a better understanding of users’ goals, needs, motivations, and pain points when looking for an area to live, I started to wonder:
How might we help users looking to relocate be able to compare and choose their ideal community based on personalized data?
EMPATHIZE. CONCEPTUALIZE. DESIGN.
User Flows
The goal was to create an all-in-one platform with a simple and seamless flow. Start by searching for a place or taking the quiz, selecting a city from the suggestions, and saving it. Their users would create an account if they wanted to and connect with the third-party real estate app to find housing.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
With the user flows and site map designed, I started sketching out and exploring different solutions for the Wandr product. I started with a simple mobile-first approach.
Design System
Greens were chosen in the primary color palette to represent new beginnings and growth.
I wanted the name “Wandr” to change the user's initial “aimless direction” in finding a place to live.
The organic “W” logo mark represents the Wanderer’s path to finding their best place.
The font chosen for our brand needed to be a modern reflection of the color palette and the user’s sophistication.
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Quiz and Search are the first things you experience on the homepage. At this point, users can take either path.
Search is for the user that knows the area they're interested in. The quiz is for the curious user who answers questions that help the product determine the best options based on multiple data points.
The interior pages will display the results and the details of each city from the list of suggestions.
The user can select and add the city to their favorites list. Once added, the sign-in or create an account prompt will appear. The user then can sign-up and see the city they added.
User Testing
I conducted a round of usability testings on major task flows. Using remote video calls, I monitored 5 participants completing major task flows in real-time. During the observations, I was able to catch errors and bugs for product revisions.
All participants and stakeholders highly rated the overall appearance and professionalism of Wandr.
When performing all four tasks, participants found navigating through each task was easy with few complications.
Deciding between the Search and Quiz, some users were confused about which to choose. Some users knew what they wanted to search and some wanted to take the quiz.
BEFORE
AFTER
Some found that the search results needed to have better-related search suggestions.
BEFORE
AFTER
Participants found the quiz self-explanatory. However, the questions varied in clarity; some re-wording and explanation were needed on the purpose of the question.
BEFORE
AFTER
Adjusting filter buttons so that they didn’t go too far down the page, so the user was able to adjust more easily. Removing “all that apply” from buttons that didn’t have multiple options and adjusting the header to clarify what the page was.
BEFORE
AFTER
Participants thought that the “Contacting a Realtor” CTA could be within a third-party real estate page instead of making a connection within the site.
BEFORE
AFTER
