Creating and executing interviews
Building user flows
Producing our branding materials and video
Sketch, Adobe CS, InVision
We held in-person interviews consisting of:
3 married couples
2 engaged couples
2 single adults aged 21-35
And an 11 person online survey with:
university students
married individuals
engaged individuals
single individuals
We held in-person interviews consisting of:
3 married couples
2 engaged couples
2 single adults aged 21-35
And an online survey with:
university students
married individuals
engaged individuals
single individuals
During the in-person interviews, we provided a simple overview of the buying process to refresh the users' memories, then allowed them to outline each step, writing down what they were feeling, struggling with, and how they were getting information along the way. We used the interviews and survey to:
Find out the motivation of young couples or individuals to buy a built-to-order home.
Were they tired of the limited freedom of living with parents, or were they ready to start their own family and needed more space?
Discover the different factors that they considered during their planning.
How far into the future were they planning and saving for? Where could they find information to begin the process?
Uncover difficulties in the planning and application process.
What parts of the journey were the most burdensome? What resources are available to guide them through the long and complicated process?
INSIGHTS & SYNTHESIS
We synthesized the findings from our interviews and survey, and organized the process into three distinct phases: planning, applying, and post-application. We found key pain-points from our users during each of these phases:
Planning Phase
1. Information is scattered and variable
2. Feels like there's still plenty of time to save money and plan
3. Uneven work distribution between couples
Application Phase
1. Difficulty tracking information from multiple sources
2. Starting to face financial difficulties due to poor planning
3. Poor communication between couples on who's tracking what
Post-Application
1. Realized too late that planning ahead is crucial
2. Young couples struggle to cover home payments on top of the expenses of young adulthood
Planning Phase
1. Information is scattered and variable
2. Feels like there's still plenty of time to save money and plan
3. Uneven work distribution between couples
Application Phase
1. Difficulty tracking information from multiple sources
2. Starting to face financial difficulties due to poor planning
3. Poor communication between couples on who's tracking what
Post-Application
1. Realized too late that planning ahead is crucial
2. Young couples struggle to cover home payments on top of the expenses of young adulthood
Assurance, relief, and preparedness throughout the process.
Make sure that we're providing the right information at the right times to not overwhelm or misinform the user, as well as ensuring that the process is straightforward and usable.
Anticipation for the future and celebration of milestones.
Encourage collaboration between partners, and create interactions and design elements that incite a sense of joy and excitement for entering a new stage of life.
After organizing our ideation session, we chose a few concepts to move forward with. We began integrating them into a mobile app, which we then performed user testing on with 5 of our original interviewees.
Much of our testing was focused on usability, which we measured by giving users tasks to complete and mimicking the interactions of clicking through the app. This helped us omit unnecessary elements, prioritize more important interactions, and settle on a design language as we moved into the final design.
Timely and filtered information.
Questionnaires filter out relevant information and choices for users while they're creating their account. With this information, housing and other financial costs are tabulated to create goals and alert couples how much they need to save. Timely notifications keep users on track with the BTO process and their long-term financial goals.
User experience design isn't just for the end-user.
Working with the Singaporean government and understanding how the housing process affects them helped to not only inform this project, but also inform my understanding of service design. It helped me understand the bigger picture of how design can be used to transform an entire system.
Invaluable lessons in what school, friendship, and accountability means outside of the US.
I was assigned a group for this project, but my groupmates ended up being some of the people I spent the most time with on exchange. Whether it was trying new food or seeing parts of the country that tourists usually don't, I couldn't have "lived like a Singaporean" without them.
User experience design isn't just for the end-user.
Working with the Singaporean government and understanding how the housing process affects them helped to not only inform this project, but also inform my understanding of service design. It helped me understand the bigger picture of how design can be used to transform an entire system.
Invaluable lessons in what school, friendship, and accountability means outside of the US.
I was assigned a group for this project, but my groupmates ended up being some of the people I spent the most time with on exchange. Whether it was trying new food or seeing parts of the country that tourists usually don't, I couldn't have "lived like a Singaporean" without them.