Designing a Fintech / Real Estate Mashup - Empire (2019)
Overview:
I was engaged with a real estate investment client to research and design a mobile application that would allow prospective investors to purchase shares of real estate parcels using regular currency or cryptocurrency, store their holdings in a portfolio/associated dashboard, and interact with the dashboard in real-time for pricing and trading activities.
Challenges:
- Branding: The client’s only branding was taken from the current web site, there was no other documented style or color guidelines.
- Personas: No established research on the types of users that would potentially use the platform.
- Hybrid Domain Expertise: This app was meant to be a stock trading app (in feel) for real estate investors and/or realtors. Presents a challenge in users level of comfort with one domain or the other, as well as blockchain technology.
Approach:
BRANDING
Mimic the clean, modern sans-serif typography, subtle light/medium blue/gray palette, imagery to accompany the data, and clear calls to action on their marketing / home page.
PERSONAS
Along with the Investor and Realtor personas defined by the client, I added Tourist and Native to represent people from both outside and inside the comfort zone of the landscape in which they may be interested in investing.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
What the client said:
~mobile first - both phone and tablet, can translate to desktop
~should feel like a stock trading app, but easy to use
~should have a “quick ticket” for easy purchases or sales on the fly
~connects to existing database with all properties in Manhattan, each with a unique code
~users should be able to purchase/lease or sell a whole or part of an address/code
~users can use USD or blockchain currency for this version
Further questions I asked:
~will there be a messaging system and/or way to contact support?
~what about notifications? what things would trigger a notification?
~what happens if there is a technical error or issue with a trade?
~what specific things should be on the dashboard?
~should 2FA be an option or required?
~how do users deposit & withdraw funds, specifically?
~What services or APIs are used for currency transactions?
BRAINSTORMING
. . . . here’s the part where I create a bunch of gobbledygook that no one can understand but me (: . . .
PRELIMINARY DESIGNS
Created preliminary designs for sign-off from client on style/color/branding.
Design mobile first.
Added informational icons for those who are not as comfortable with the lingo or process of a trading scenario.
DESIGN ITERATIONS
Moved to tablet design for further approvals from client for larger real estate (no pun intended :).
This was a project for a minimum viable product, so only top-level requirements included.
The biggest frustration point by far in a potentially large financial transaction is a technological glitch.
This error modal was designed with the typical ‘cancel’ to go back to where I was before, ‘try again’ to re-initiate the transaction, and a 3rd ‘dock for later’ for extra reassurance that the intended action the user was trying to perform was not lost in the ether of the app, and they can save it locally for another time.
Outcome:
• Ready to prepare pattern library for developers
• Ready to prepare style guide for future designers
• Ready to document future iterations in mind for post-MVP
