Fibre
Redesigning the Fibre website to align with their new brand direction
About Fibre
Fibre is a sharing economy start-up that seeks to eliminate the barriers that make it difficult for young professionals and families to find homes and live in major cities in Nigeria. They build products that provide people with affordable payment options for housing. They offer flexible payment and housing options that are designed around different users’ unique needs.
My Role
User Flow
Research & Analysis
Prototyping
Design
Usability Testing
Presentation to clients.
Problem
Fibre’s old website was clunky and not streamlined. Analytics revealed they were experiencing high amounts of drop-offs and the process to sign up for the service and pay for it was very complicated. They also did not have a clear way to indicate the total breakdown of expenses for each property so users expressed confusion at the pricing. They also wanted a simpler and fresh look for their website in general.
Research and Analysis
Interviewing present users of the web platform
One of the key focuses of the brand was always community and building a product tailored to the exact community needs. We conducted a workshop with current users and had them identify their challenges and pain points while using the present platform.
We also used data from google analytics to identify what points of the website users seemed to drop off the most and asked users what challenges they had on that page.
Key Insights
- Users were not clear on how to use the search bar on the homepage.
- Users felt like the booking process to book an apartment was confusing and would often abandon it.
- Users did not understand the breakdown of how much they would have to pay for the apartments.
- Users felt the sign-up and document verification process was too confusing.
Based on our interview we arrived at these three user stories:
“I am a Fibre user and I would like to have a clear understanding of all the fees and payments for each apartment”
“I am a Fibre user and I would like easily book apartments for viewing and be reminded when the booking is soon.”
“I am a Fibre user and I would like to sign up for the service and have my documents verified faster”
Competitor Analysis
We reviewed Fibre’s competitors and other businesses in the same field as Fibre. We found the edge Fibre has is providing luxury apartments with flexible payment plans tailored for each user and also a service that is targeted at busy young professionals and promises to take care of the nitty-gritty of renting and leasing a property. This unique selling point was to be at the forefront of the website design.
User Personas
The personas were based mainly on user research and an overview of our user base. The personas affected the design as they had very different needs and would use the platform in a different manner.
A young professional seeking for housing to make their work commute easy.
They do not have a wide pool of savings to pay for 2 years of upfront rent as Nigerian landlords demand.
A professional with a starter family who is looking for convenient housing that will balance his home and work life. Has high taste and would like to live in comfort and luxury.
Design
Based off the user research and requested items in our brief our objectives were to;
Streamline the sign-up and onboarding process.
Redesign the booking process.
Display rent breakdown early on in the process in an easier-to-understand way.
Create a dashboard where users can track their bookings and payments.
Redesign the search bar on the homepage in an easier-to-understand user-friendly format.
Designs
A simple pared-down design of the homepage directs the user’s attention straight to the search bar. The user can specify what they would like to rent and in what area. If they are unsure of what they need the user is also able to just press the enter button without searching and will be shown all of Fibre’s listings.
The listings page displays all the available apartments with a filter to refine your search. A filter could be used to select properties based on location, availability and pricing, etc Properties that also had leases that would soon expire were also listed with a tag indicating when they would be available. Users could then book a viewing ahead.
The listing detail page is a page where the user can view the details about each property. Fibre allows flexible leases and users can rent properties monthly, yearly, or for half a year. Because of the different ways users can decided to pay, It was necessary to include an intuitive slider on the listings detail page that breaks down exactly how much rent the user will be paying and for how long. The user can simply shift the slider to whatever duration of time and the corresponding prices would be displayed.
The users also needed transparency on the pricing structure upfront and an explicit breakdown of how much service charges and utilities would cost. This was detailed on the listings detail page.
Users could also book a property viewing and select the next available date for that from the listings details page.
The dashboard design lets the user track payments, bookings, and verification. This page displays how far the user has gone with their verification process and what documents they need. Verification was necessary to enable secure leasing. This was also a high drop-off point because users were wary of providing so much information or would abandon it because of the time it would take to send their documents in.
We broke this down by letting initial users provide the minimum amount of information they would need to use the platform. Users were then prompted at a later date via email to provide other documents in order to unlock bookings. Users could submit verification documents through this dashboard.
The old booking process was a long one and this was a point at which multiple users also dropped off. We broke the process into multiple stages each with save points so the user could return to the process whenever convenient. Users that had not completed the process were also then emailed and notified to complete the process and they could just pick up where they stopped.
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