Rentful
Digitizing the rental application process for students and landlords
OVERVIEW
What is Rentful?
Rentful is a housing software designed to streamline the rental application process for tenants and landlords by eliminating the need for paper applications. As a designer for Iter8, Cal Poly's Product Design agency, I was placed on Rentful's design team for a 3-month website redesign project.
When I joined the Rentful design team, the company's website was outdated and incomplete, lacking brand identity, intuitive navigation, and clear distinctions between tenant and landlord views.
My Role & Timeline
My Role: Product Designer
Duration: 3 Months
Team: 6 Product Designers, 2 Project Managers
Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator
THE PROBLEM
The website lacked crucial features for managing rentals.
We began by sitting down with the client to understand their challenges. The existing rental process wasn’t just outdated–it was frustrating for both landlords and tenants.
We identified three key issues:
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Housing applications required manual paperwork, which landlords had to scan and upload individually
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Tenants were required to collect and complete applications in person, making the application process long and tedious
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Landlords lacked a centralized system to organize or efficiently review applications
USER RESEARCH
Why are students struggling to find housing?
To design an effective solution, we wanted to empathize with our users. Through interviews with college students navigating the housing market in San Luis Obispo, we were able to uncover their pain points and struggles:
Based on the interviews, the main reasons why students struggle to find housing are:
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Competitive housing market with limited availability
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With many housing listings across various platforms, it is challenging to organize and compare all the information
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Research, comparing options, and completing applications makes the process of searching for housing time-consuming
How might we help tenants find rental properties that match their specific needs and preferences?
How might we help landlords quickly identify qualified tenants?
How might we clearly distinguish between tenant and landlord views to avoid confusion?
Figuring out goals and priorities
To synthesize our findings from the client debrief and user research, we wrote HMW (how might we) statements to reframe our challenges and problems into insightful questions to guide the design process:
DESIGN PROCESS
Refreshing Rentful's design system
As Rentful’s existing website lacked a clear brand identity, the client requested that we build a design system for their brand before creating wireframes of the website. The client envisioned a bright, playful, and welcoming color scheme, which we thoughtfully incorporated into the color palette and font selection.
Note: As we progressed in the design process, we did not end up incorporating all of the colors and components from this system into the final website prototype.
EARLY ITERATIONS
Creating a blueprint for our designs
Informed by user research insights, we used the crazy 8’s exercise to brainstorm solutions for challenges students face on housing websites. During this early sketching phase, we identified a critical issue: the potential for confusion between landlord and tenant views. This exercise highlighted the need for clearer distinctions between these user perspectives and helped us prioritize which screens needed to be redesigned.
Solution Sketches
Following our brainstorming session, each designer was assigned specific screens to create low-fidelity wireframes. I designed the lease application screens for both tenant and landlord views, as well as an application dashboard where landlords can view all of the completed applications.
Designing low-fidelity wireframes
Lease Application (Landlord View)
Lease Application (Tenant View)
Landlord Application Dashboard
DESIGN PROCESS
Preparing for user testing
I then turned these ideas into mid-fidelity prototypes in preparation for user testing, incorporating our design system. Our team believed that mid-fidelity prototypes would be best for user testing, as they strike a balance between providing enough visual detail to gather feedback while still being flexible enough to easily make changes.
Lease Application (Tenant View)
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Application Dashboard (Landlord View)
USER TESTING
Evaluating different options through A/B Testing
Using two different concepts I created for the layout of the landlord application dashboard, I conducted A/B testing on the two designs to determine which version was more effective for users. Based on the feedback given, I was also able to identify pain points from users, helping me refine the design for a better user experience.
Landlord Application Dashboard
Option A
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Option B
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Based on the test results, Option A provided a better experience for users. Therefore, it was implemented in the final prototype shown below.
Users preferred Option A for the following reasons:
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Users liked being able to view a larger number of applications at once
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They noted that the large tenant profile pictures were unnecessary, taking up space and creating a cluttered look
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Grouped applications can potentially be confusing for landlords, as rental applications are usually submitted individually
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The layout made it easy to view application details, leases, and requested roommates
SOLUTION
Final Prototype
TAKEAWAYS
What I Learned
Reflecting on the design process, these are some key takeaways and aspects I would approach differently:
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Communication matters: Collaborating with a large team of designers taught me the importance of effective communication. Weekly team meetings and design critiques were helpful in ensuring that everyone understood the project goals and their individual responsibilities. This also helped align our efforts in maintaining consistency across different design components.
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Test early and often: In hindsight, conducting initial rounds of user testing on low-fidelity prototypes rather than mid-fidelity would have been a more efficient approach. Since the A/B testing primarily focused on screen layout and functionality rather than visual design, the same insights could have been gathered earlier in the process. Testing at the low fidelity stage would would have saved time and allowed for additional rounds of testing.
View my other projects!
Poly Pantry
User Research • UX Design • Prototyping
Pringles Redesign
Packaging Design • Illustration
Mustang Media Group
Editorial Design • Layout • Illustration