Equistay

A mobile app for co-owning vacation property.

Screenshots of a mobile app interface for real estate listings, showing property photos, details, and options to save or reserve homes in various locations like San Diego, Santa Monica, and Miami.

TIMELINE
80 Hours

ROLE UX Researcher UX/UI Designer

Starting from Scratch

THE APP: Equistay is a real estate app specific to co-owning vacation property. This app tackles the problem of both the costliness of vacations themselves and the alternative costliness of owning a vacation property.

MY ROLE: Bring the client’s app idea to life. I worked with him to research and develop a solution that bridges the gap between these two problems; vacation home ownership at a more reasonable price.

The client’s goal was to use the base ideas of a timeshare, however modernize so that instead of buying time, you buy a share of the property.

Goal

The image shows a black dog lying on the floor next to a woman sitting on a chair. The woman has short hair and is wearing a white top and black pants. The dog is resting its head on the woman's leg.

My Design Process

Research

Competitive Analyses

User Interviews

Affinity Map

Application Map

User Flow

Define

Sketches

Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

UI Kit

Logo

High-Fidelity Prototype

Design

Usability Tests

Iterations

Test

Text that reads 'THE STORY' in dark blue, positioned diagonally on a plain white background.

The idea for this app came to the client after personal struggles using other vacation home-sharing apps.

He knew what he liked and didn’t like and therefore what he wanted included in his app.

I had to research to make sure that the ideas that he had did not already exist in the market AND that others wanted the same features.

Research

Checking out the Competition

I began my research by comparing companies in the vacation home-sharing sphere. My client told me the top features he wanted included, and I compared the companies across these features.

Text saying "MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES" in blue font on a black background.

The image shows a handwritten text that reads 'Main Basis of App' in dark blue ink on a white background.

A black arrow pointing downward and to the left with a curved tail.

Text reading 'Nice to have' on a black background.

A black arrow curved to the left with a blue outline.

Competitive Analyses

None of these companies provided all of my client’s desired features, so I felt that there was a gap in the market that Equistay could fill!

This gave me the confidence to move forward with my research.

Conclusions

User Interviews

Make sure that the company is correctly targeting a problem for potential users, as well as discover what a successful solution to this problem would look like.

Goal

I searched for interview participants that would be a good fit socio-economically and based on travel habits.

Participants

The goal of the app is to be affordable but a better experience than a bargain timeshare

WHY?

By finding participants who would be the target users for the app…

I am able to ascertain the need for this app in the market and discover what features are needed

User Interviews: Affinity Map

I created an affinity map to organize my interview results and uncover patterns.

A detailed infographic broken down into sections about current travel habits, vacation property ownership, costs, experiences, co-ownership, concerns/questions, app inclusion, and categories. It features color-coded sections with text discussing preferences, expenses, experiences, and considerations for vacation property ownership and travel frequency.

All frequent the same travel destinations yearly

All have savings but not enough for the desired properties
All have similar knowledge and questions about co-owning property

Main Patterns

Quantitative Results

100% want to own vacation property

100% have savings but not enough to purchase property

100% would be interested in co-owning property

User Interviews: Conclusions

Buying vacation property is too expensive and it is difficult to find someone to co-own property with

Most would prefer not to interact with other co-owners if they were to be strangers

Most would prefer not to be involved in managing the property

These results supported the original problem that the client aimed to solve as well as provided insight into what the app should include and what services should be provided.

Define

I wanted to define how users would navigate the app, so I used the results of my research and inspiration from similar apps to create an application map with the goal of making this navigation as intuitive and user-friendly as possible.

Visualizing the Layout

Handwritten text on a whiteboard that says, 'Option for user to add a property they have come across.'

Handwritten text on a black background reads, 'ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS THE USER WOULD HAVE'.

I chose to work on the “Dashboard” (home page) and “Listings” page for this project in order to show the most important functionality of the app.

The dashboard is what users will see when they first open the app and is the starting off point for navigation

WHY?

The listings are what the app is all about! Users need to be able to browse through what they want to purchase

The listing proposal will explain what the user is actually purchasing (number of shares, length of stay)

The other pages will be developed in the next steps!

Navigating Reservations as the User

I created a user flow utilizing the prioritized app map pages to define how a user would navigate through the buying process.

How do we stop users from reserving properties that they are not qualified for and therefore are unable to purchase?

PROBLEM

Create a verification process so that users cannot reserve a property unless they are a verified user on the app

SOLUTION

The image features the words 'Verification' and 'Process' written in large, handwritten-style blue lettering.

User Flow for Purchasing a Property

Design

I began sketching out all of my ideas for the main screens I would be designing for (determined in the app map and user flow).

Starting with Sketching

Property page options

Property card options

Filters/icons

Dashboard

I talked through these sketches and ideas with the client in order to finalize the basic designs for the screens and move on to digitizing screens.

For these screens, I was still not 100% set on certain design aspects, so I included some options for pages that were not finalized to go over with the client.

Moving on to Mid-Fidelity

Handwritten sign on a chalkboard with the words 'Property Card Options' written in blue chalk.

A blue, curved arrow pointing to the left with a slight upward arc.

Handwritten text says 'Listing Page Options' in blue.

A simple black fish with a blue arrow pointing downward on a white background.

I met with the client and we talked through the pros and cons of different design options

The main struggle was combining the client’s vision with the most intuitive and user-friendly design possible

Keeping the client in the loop every step of the way allowed me to create a design that successfully accomplished both

UI

I began by establishing the color palette for the app. The client wanted the app to feel modern, inviting, and professional as well as invoke feelings of adventure associated with travel.

Adding Color

Color swatches arranged in a grid pattern, each with a hex color code label beneath, featuring shades of blue, orange, yellow, and beige.

I finalized two options to send to the client:

Text reading "Client preferred this option" written in blue handwritten-style font.

Color Palette

I then worked on designing the company’s logo. I wanted an image of a home included, but was torn between a modern, sleek look vs a whimsical look. I presented the client with two options before including the color palette.

Logo

A black and white illustration of a curved arrow pointing to the right.

Text that reads 'Client preferred this option' in blue handwritten style font on a white background.

Final Logos

Style Tile

Screenshots of the Equistay mobile app showing the welcome screen, property listings in Santa Monica and San Diego, and a form to add a new property listing.

With all of the research, defining, and first steps of the design process behind me, I moved on to my favorite part of the design process: creating high-fidelity prototypes!

High Fidelity Prototype

Launch page

Home page

Listings page

Option for users to add a listing they have found

Screenshots of a mobile app for booking vacation property reservations. The first screen shows filter options for property searches, the second displays a listing for a Miami beachfront property with details and a reserve button, the third shows a reservation confirmation message, and the fourth indicates successful reservation with a thank you message.

Filters for listings

Property page

Reservation pop up with details of reservation inclusions

Confirmation message explaining reservation

Four smartphone screens showing an app interface for Equistay, illustrating options to buy shares, own, stay, and rent property with related illustrations and brief descriptions.

I added a pop up for new users when they first download the app with brief explanations

Test

After completing the prototype, I recruited participants for usability testing. Users were tasked with finding and reserving a specific property.

Results

All users were able to successfully navigate through the app to the requested Miami property and reserve a share of the property.

Task completion rate: 100%

Conclusions

Finding the property was intuitive
The onboarding screens were helpful in explaining what the app was for
Reservations were slightly confusing

While all users were able to complete the task, most had follow up questions about the reservation process itself. I reworked the reservation screen pop up to include more information.

Iterations

Screenshots of a mobile app interface for reserving a property, showing the reservation process and instructions for adjusting the number of shares purchased.

I added details about payment to this explanation

I moved the number with the + and - to its own line

This pops up when the user clicks on the question mark to provide further explanation

Learnings and Next Steps

This project taught me how to navigate working with a client’s vision while keeping the user’s best interests in mind

Having multiple options throughout the design process helped both me and the client effectively visualize the product and figure out what was and wasn’t working

Being open to feedback and willing to iterate was crucial for this project

My next step would be to design more screens to showcase more user flows. Looking towards the future, the final step upon the completion of the mobile app would be to adapt to a desktop website.