Cleared Renter

Cleared Renter’s goal is to provide customers the ability to pay one rental application fee and apply to as many rental properties as needed. Through this process, Cleared Renter wants to manage the stress of the application process so the customer doesn’t have to.

The Challenge:

• Complete Website Redesign Ready to Launch

  • Clear communication as to business
    goals and services

  • Straightforward registration process

  • Provide users peace of mind knowing
    their personal information is secure

  • Rebrand & Restyle

  • Client needs 10k Subscribers by March 2020

The Team:

Eric Sarmiento
Niki Sylvia
Adrian Arriola

Duration:

2.5 Week Sprint

Interviews + Usability Testing

We conducted 8 interviews and usability tests of the current Cleared Renters site to not only collect insight on the design & structure, but also to gauge users understanding of the business. The key takeaways included:

• Users unsure of what business is and what services available to them

• No details about cost

• Site Construction incomplete & unprofessional design

• Positive towards business goals

After completing the usability testing, we gathered all the qualitative data to delineate users pain points.

Gathering the insights from our 8 interviews and usability tests confirmed what we were seeing throughout.

• Users unsure of what services available to them

• Transparency of information

• Site Construction incomplete & unprofessional design

• Confusing task flow

• Positive towards business goals

Feature Prioritization
Lead: Niki
Support: Eric

Using what we’ve gathered so far, we decided on what features we were to focus on for our MVP. The core features were normally what you would expect from most sites, which spoke to the need to have a clear and concise design explaining who Cleared Renter is. The other features noted were suggested for future iterations to our client.

Persona
Lead: Adrian
Support: Eric & Nikki

Next in our process was to create a persona based on the customer base our client was targeting along with the users we interviewed. We finalized the details on the persona, and Morgan Flask was born.

Scenario, Problem Statement, HMW
Lead: Adrian
Support: Eric & Niki

The scenario and problem statement we developed, Morgan accepted a new position in Los Angeles requiring her to move from Portland in the midst of planning a wedding. Morgan is getting frustrated due to the fact that she’s already spent $200 on application fees and is in the process of submitting two more, which is another $80.

I then created our…

HOW MIGHT WE PROVIDE MORGAN AN INTUITIVE AND STRESS-FREE WAY TO FILL OUT ONE APPLICATION TO USE FOR MULTIPLE RENTAL LISTINGS?

Design Studio & Sketching

Our team, along with the founder, began the design phase with a design studio session which gave her insight as to our process and direction. We began by each designing ideas for the home page.
We would then review all of the sketches and based on group feedback, decide on the best solutions. We continued our design studio process through all the flows of the site redesign.

Originally, we were designing separate pages for the navigational links, but decided that including all information on a single page might be a more efficient experience for users.

Once we decided on all the potential designs, we focused on creating sketches to dial in the details and user flow.

Digitizing Sketches
Lead: Niki
Support: Eric and Adrian

Taking the work we developed during our design studio and notebook sketches, we began building out low-medium fidelity wireframes. Our objective was to create a clickable prototype that could run through a usability test without having users be influenced by iconography, imagery, or color.

Another area of focus was the copy, as it was one of the main pain points I noted in the heuristic evaluation, which were also validated during our initial interviews. We wrote new copy that would help the user understand the steps users would be taking along with a description as to what service the business offers.

Once we had the base of our wireframes, I created a prototype through Invision whilst keeping the flow of our persona’s journey in mind.

Usability Testing

During our first round of usability testing, users had a relatively straightforward experience and were able to complete the task set for them. Main takeaways were:

• Finish adding copy to all sections

• Provide context for the Renter Score (copy & mockup)

• Add CTA for “looking for…” to guide users to the final step

• Fix wording for income form

• Add purchase price to the payment page

After making these adjustments, we continued to create a higher fidelity and conducted additional testing.
Following 3 rounds of usability testing, we fixed user pain points along with other UI elements to ensure clarity through task experience.

- Next Steps -

• Build out ability to search for rental units on the site

• Include a chat function

• Build out and implement landlord and property review feature as users reacted positively to the copy on the homepage.

Lastly, as noted by users, we recommended that Cleared Renter update the ‘About Us’ copy and reevaluate how they integrate the mascot into the business.