My Ideal Spot

A mobile app that takes the overwhelm out of finding your ideal place to live with targeted recommendations.
3 screenshots of the app
Take this fun quiz to discover your favorite city or town to live in.
Detailed area information, including school ratings, crime statistics, political views, and more.
See homes for sale or rent within your budget in your favorite area.
Find out what's in your new neighborhood before you move in.
See Figma Prototype Here

About This App

Background

With more people working from home many of us are no longer bound to any particular city. People are growing tired of their city’s high cost of living, too much traffic, or lengthy commute.

Some already have a dream place they want to live in. Others know they want to get away, but don’t quite know where.

Regardless of where they are, they now have this opportunity, and we are here to help them find their ideal spot.

The Goal

We can transform the daunting experience of finding the ideal place to live into something inspirational by making it easy for users to find their perfect city or town, based on the criteria they choose.

Then we can give them all the necessary neighborhood information, such as crime rates, real estate prices, school ratings and political views, all in one app.

Design Process

Step 1. Empathize

  • Competitive analysis: Neighborhood Scout, Livability and Zillow.
  • Interview 4 individuals who have recently made a major move.

Step 2. Define

  • Create 2 user personas, based on people I interviewed.
  • Identify what people really need when they look for a new place to live.

Step 3. Ideate

  • Create storyboards to outline the journey of each persona.
  • Design user flow and task flow of the app.
  • Create lo- and hi- fidelity wireframes.
  • Design the logo and brand style of the app.

Step 4. Prototype

  • Create hi-fidelity design of the app.
  • Design the prototype that shows how the app works.

Step 5. Test

  • Watch 4+ individuals go through the app and get their feedback.
  • Implement all the changes that make sense for now.
  • Create a list of ideas for possible future changes.

Competitor Analysis

Neighborhood Scout

Livability

Zillow

What do they do?

Give users detailed  information about any neighborhood they choose.
Gives you overall information about any city, gives you suggestions based on affordability.
Lists homes for sale and rent, and gives you limited neighborhood information.

Strengths

Gives you crime rates, school ratings, reel estate appreciation, and other demographics
Simple, user-friendly, and free. Suggests nearby towns, based on the cost of living. Gives the top 10 places to live.
Widely popular home search site, you can enter home criteria for your search.

Weaknesses

Expansive memberships, limited free information, no suggestions, no past election statistics.
Very limited information that’s also misleading and not very accurate.
No neighborhood information, other than school ratings.

User Interviews

I interviewed 4 individuals who have moved across the country at least once in their lives AND are either planning to move or thinking about moving soon. Here is what I've learned from them.
affinity map, online research struggles
People typically do online research before moving, not always finding what they need.
affinity map, people know what they don't want.
People definitely know what they DON’T want
Affinity map, neighborhood friendliness
Neighborhood friendliness and safety were highly important to everyone I interviewed.
Affinity map, people need more guidance
People generally know what they want, but they need more help and guidance to explore their needs further.

Research Summary

User Personas

2 user personas with different backgrounds and needs. Both are looking to relocate.
User persona 1, Carrie
Carrie's Journey
Carrie's journey
User persona 2, Jarred
Jarred's Journey
Jarred's journey

Task Flow and User Flow

Task flow of the Callisto Vault mobile app, starting from creating an account.
User flow of the app
This is the user flow for when the user first starts the app. They may or may not take the quiz.
Task flow of the app
This is the task flow for the quiz.

Initial Sketches

The top 3 are the different versions of the home screen. The bottom three are the 2 quiz steps, followed by the results screen.
App sketch, 3 versions of the home screenApp sketch, 2 quiz screens and results screen.

Hi-Fidelity Wireframes

As I presented the wireframe models to the team and the ambassadors, the vast majority favored the idea of having the matching system, encrypted record forms, and resources all laid out on one page without any swiping.
wireframe home screen v1
Home screen v1
wireframe, home screen v2
Home screen v2
wireframe, quiz step 1, weather
Quiz step 1, weather
wireframe, quiz step 2, city size
Quiz step2, city size
wireframe, quiz step 3, politics
Quiz step 3, politics
wireframe, quiz step 3, politics part 2
How important is this?
wireframe, quiz step 4, location proximity
Quiz step 4, Location
wireframe, quiz step 4, what you don't want
What you don't want nearby
wireframe, quiz step 5, home criteria
Quiz step 5, home criteria
wireframe, calculating results, v1
Calculating results page v1
wireframe, calculating results, v2
Calculating results page v2
wireframe, results page
Results screen

Brand Style

These are the brand colors and fonts for the app.
Brand styles

Testing

Showed the prototype to all the users I interviewed previously and collected their feedback. Most of the changes you see below have already been implemented.

What Works

user comments, what works

Changes to Make

user comments, changes to be made

Questions

user comments, questions

Ideas for the Future

user comments, ideas for the future

Other Changes

After this project was completed and shown to a few more people, one person mentioned it that the design doesn't look cutting edge. I made a few redesigns to the logo and the main look of the app without making any significant changes or losing what other users loved to make the design look more modern.
App look, before
App look, after
quiz page, before.
quiz page, after

Prototype

The prototype video of the app.
See Figma Prototype Here
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