Research Goals

We want to identify the key target audiences, know their goals, needs, motivations, and frustrations people have when booking short vacation rentals, as well as the messages we want to deliver the most to guests and investors.

Research Methods

• Stakeholder interviews - To hear from stakeholders on the company’s current target market, products, performances, and goals.

• Market Research - To study the trends of short vacation rentals and understand the market.

• Competitive research - To identify direct and indirect competitors, including small short rental companies and large chains, to identify their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their features and designs overall.

To start this off, I first had interviews with the stakeholders of Homes by IDoGood. We talked about their vision, brand culture and values, their target audiences, messaging matrix, performances, frustrations, and goals they have towards this project.

Target Audiences

• Guests:  business travelers, cultural enthusiasts, families/friends/couples, remote workers, and mid-term renters in the mid/upper class.

• Investors: homeowners, real estate investors, and real estate agents.

After gaining insights from the user research, now it’s time for us to create personas. Creating personas helped me to understand users’ needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals. I could use personas to build empathy with target users and focus on their world.

Meet Rachel, who presents the guests group. And Bernad, who presents the investors group.

Now that we have empathized with the potential users, it’s time to move on to defining the project. We are first identifying a key problem statement, and finding the common grounds between business and user goals.

We want to find the most fitted features and contents on our website for problem-solving purposes. To start this off, I identified a few competitors who are best in class, went on their sites, and did an in-depth competitive analysis specifically on their features and contents. I then rated each feature/content by its costs and values.

We have limited time and resources, so we need to ensure we are spending on the most fitted features and content that deliver the most value. I then spoke with the stakeholders, and we went through features one by one to decide on the list of key elements that should be included in the website design at this stage.

With the features and contents identified, I created a sitemap to help plan the structure of the website.

We’ll then move on to interaction design. To help us understand the user experience better, I created a task flow that includes the potential steps to take for main tasks.

I further created a user flow, which takes potential users from their entry point through a set of steps towards a successful outcome and final action.

With the information architecture in mind, I started brainstorming a few layouts of each screen. I then developed high-fidelity wireframes in Figma and added copies that the client provided. Wireframing is an important communication tool because It gives the client, developer, and designer an opportunity to walk through the structure of the website without getting sidetracked by design elements such as colors and images.

Minimal, modern, clean, and environmental… Now we’ve defined the characteristics of this product, we are moving into the visual design. To achieve consistency and speed up the design process, I created a UI kit that contains a set of design elements such as UI components and styles. The client indicated that their brand color is British Racing Green, so I chose a color scheme that matches with the brand color.

Now it’s time to put everything altogether! Here is the completed website design for Homes by IDG.

I then created a prototype on Figma to show the navigation flow. This prototype is later to be delivered to developer for the actual built.

Please find the full prototype here.

Test Objectives

• Test whether the users can get clear information on Homes-by-IDG’s brand culture.

• Test whether it is easy and straight-forward for users to request booking and complete assessment quiz.

• Note any generation hesitations, confusion, difficulties in the process.

Test Subject

A high-fidelity prototype (from Figma) that contains fully completed website UI design.

Test Methodology

• Remote, one-on-one test, via Zoom with screen recording.

Test Participants

5 participates

• Age: 25-55

• Occupation: annual household income is +$200k

• Location: North America, Asia and Africa

Test Results

It is good to know that usability test participants liked the overall design. But certainly they pointed out a few issues as well. After having a meeting with the clients to speak through each issue, we decided on a few things where need to be revised.