Iman Syed
All case studies

Rent-Able

One place for tenants and landlords to report, track and resolve maintenance requests.

Problem
Repair requests get lost in calls and texts.
Solution
One app to report, track and manage every request.
Role
UI designer, UX researcher (team project)
Tools
Figma, Figma Make, Google Forms, Canva
Timeline
Jan – Apr 2025 (3 months)

Research

Who uses the app, and where does communication break down today?

Personas and scenarios

We built three personas, a tenant who avoids phone calls, a busy property manager and a tenant who wants status updates, and wrote a scenario for each to guide interviews.

Shuffle through the deck, or pick a name.

Interviews

5 interviews, with 10 questions for tenants and 11 for landlords. We sorted what we heard into an affinity diagram to find shared problems.

Define

What the app has to do for each side.

  • Tenants

    Report issues with photos, track each request’s status with automatic updates, and see how the landlord prefers to be reached.

  • Landlords

    Manage and respond to requests, schedule repair technicians, and broadcast urgent building-wide alerts.

  • Both

    Custom notifications, attachments on every request, and one dashboard for status, progress and assignments.

Design

Two directions; mine was chosen for clarity and accessibility.

Choosing a direction

A teammate and I each designed a UI. Mine focused on clarity for a broad audience, including older and less tech-savvy people. The team chose it for:

  • Footer navigation, so thumbs travel less
  • Large buttons and readable type
  • Feedback and error messages at every step
  • Icons paired with text labels

Testing

A heuristic review by the team, then task-based tests with the five original participants.

Heuristic evaluation

Each teammate scored the design against usability heuristics. Four problems stood out: no way to edit or delete a request, no in-app help, an inconsistent Back button, and cluttered screens with unclear icons.

The tasks, as participants saw them

Pick a task to watch its recording.

How each participant did

Observed during the tasks, then rated overall from 1 to 5 after a Likert survey.

  • P15/5Confident throughout. Liked the confirmation toasts and asked for search.
  • P24/5Slower to read screens but finished alone. Asked for a larger font.
  • P34/5Easy landlord tasks. Wanted to manage vendors like HVAC and cleaning.
  • P43/5Struggled with sign-up and wanted progress indicators.
  • P53/5Unsure about labels like “In progress” and whether actions saved.

Iterate

Changes for the next version, straight from the findings.

  • Confirm every action

    Confirmation messages and progress indicators so people know it saved.

  • Clearer labels, simpler screens

    Descriptive labels and less clutter to lower the effort of navigating.

  • Contact management

    Landlords can add, edit and organize their service contacts.

  • Help where it’s needed

    A help icon and tooltips on key tasks.

  • Readability

    Larger type and stronger colour contrast.

Learning outcomes

  • Design for the least confident user

    The participants who struggled pointed to fixes that help everyone: clearer labels, simpler screens and bigger type.

  • Feedback is part of the feature

    Several people weren’t sure their action had saved. Confirmations and progress indicators matter as much as the flow itself.

  • Compare directions against requirements

    Judging two designs against the same requirements let the team choose on evidence rather than taste.