Lee Anna McGee's Archive

After interviewing a handful of people I came to the same conclusion on all- everyone had found difficulty in either locating a property for rent that met their needs as well as problems with getting in contact with the renter. Another common response and experience was the reoccurring theme of problems with a property or renter after a lease had already been signed. The majority of my interviewees said the most common way they find a property is by driving around neighborhoods in their surrounding area or word of mouth. Everyone agreed being able to see all this information in one place would have made their lives a lot easier. One of my interviewees was extremely excited to hear the possibility of reading reviews from previous tenants dealing with any positives and negatives of the property and of the renter. This would be helpful especially if the landlord or realtor wasn’t really involved with the property and not willing to fix anything or keep up maintenance. Everyone agreed that the ways they have been dealing with finding a house or apartment is extremely time consuming and often a let down. A couple of my interviewees complained that the biggest annoyance was driving around and calling about a property that had already been leased but still had the for rent sign up. One of the people I interviewed, Eric, said it would be of great help to see all aspects of the house (info on rooms, price, etc) before ever talking to the renter.

1. Where do you usually look for houses or apartments?

2. Share any previous experiences (positive or negative) about previous property hunting

3. Do you prefer to rent from realtors or individuals (landlords) ?

4. What steps do you take in order to find a property?

5. Have you ever experienced any problems with the property or property owner that could have been avoided had you known about it previously?

6. Would you be interested in hearing from someone who lived in the property before you and their responses toward the property and renter?

7. Do you wish that you could find out all about the property before ever talking to the renter? (i.e info about bills, neighbors, locks, remodeling, etc)

1. Locate all available properties for rent in your postal code

2. Narrow results down to a one story, 3 bedroom house for under $900 but also allows pets

3. Add three of your favourite listings to your bookmark

4. Narrow listings and then compare ratings and reviews

5. Find a place to rent under a mile from your campus or job by entering address

6. Contact landlord by phone or email

7. email property info/listing to yourself

8. order/view your final results by low price to highest   9. re-arrange your results to be ordered by distance

10. rate your feelings about the listing

11. change your ratings after visiting the property

Name: Alex
Occupation: Student
Interests: motorcycles and music

Alex is new in the area for university and has only been in town for a semester. However, he has the option to live off campus the next semester and wants to jump on it. Not really being familiar with street names and neighborhoods in the surrounding area, he tries to drive around the school and see if any houses or apartments are renting for next year. He runs into a few houses with signs but gets voicemails when he tries the number. He is unsure of how many bedrooms or the price at those listings anyways. Feeling stressed, he is about to just sign up for an on campus apartment when a friend tells him about (APP name). He quickly downloads the app and starts surfing. He is able to pull of a list of all surrounding availabilities within a 3 mile radius from campus. The price, number of rooms and baths, and information about bills are all visible too. Alex is able to filter down his search by putting in his maximum monthly amount and by room numbers. He also was considering bringing his family dog, Rooster, to live with him next semester and is clearly able to see the pet policy on the houses he is interested in. He couldn’t imagine something more useful happening.

        Name: Meredith
Occupation: Student/ Social Work
Interests: Music, Hanging out with friends, art

Meredith is a third year student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. She has lived in the same apartment for a year and is ready for a change. She wants to live in a house, but hasn’t been able to find one close enough to campus to bike to and from, and one in her price range. She recently heard about (APP) and decides to check it out. She is able to search all available properties less than 1 mile from campus and within her price range. She has two girls that she wants to live with so finding a three bedroom is key. She is able to sift through and narrow it down to 3 major possibilities. She had rented a house at the university she was at before and had a lot of problems both with the property and the realtor. She wants to make sure she doesn’t run into the same problems again and is excited to see reviews from previous tenants of the properties. She is able to find out what problems the house has (pipes, neighbors, etc) and how the landlord/ tenant relationship has been in the past. This is key in her decision. She can discover all of the problems and benefits without even having to talk to the renter. She also sees the possibility of scheduling a viewing right there from her phone. She doesn’t have to deal with voicemails or secretaries but is able to set up an appointment from the calendar. She has great success and will definitely recommend this app to her friends also trying to find a place to live.

My idea is to create an app to make house/ apartment hunting easy. The app would have all houses/ apts available for rent at the moment or for the up coming semester. It would have all the info for the property listed as well as contact info for the realtor or land lord.

This last project was probably one of the smoothest so far. I don’t know if it is because it had less content or the whole interactive design is just becoming more natural (hopefully the latter). I should probably actually take time to sketch more for the next project as well. It probably would have gone a lot faster had I had something to look back refer to. I noticed I am still having issues with hierarchy and allowing content to be too vibrant or too dull. However, I am starting to pick up on using colour to show importance as well as weight and size.
The main issue I kept running into with this project was my complete and lack of knowledge regarding blogs. I had to keep referring to the project intro page to ensure I was using all the correct terms and all terms necessary. I also had to continuously search what terms meant and refer to inspiration and other blogs to get a feel of how one should look. I noticed the style is quite a bit different than others in the class so I don’t quite know if I hit it or not. I still think it looks pretty cool regardless.
As I mentioned before, this project seemed to go a lot smoother and faster than previous. I have continued to learn short cuts and advance my skills on photoshop. The program is becoming a lot more enjoyable.  I also actually completed a wireframe and all fragments this time which made the overall layout go a lot smoother and quicker. Surprising how much that actually helps!
I think I am getting better at placement and overall layout. I think my legibility and overall clarity has increased/improved. One major improvement is how much I actually enjoyed this project. I think a lot of it came from the originality and creating icons and other fun things.
I just need to continue working on my hierarchy and visual language. I think I still need to grasp that line between a loud background and an effective background. I should also learn how to actually sketch thoroughly and before the project is done.