Shareable.

Shareable is an investment platform designed to facilitate the fractional ownership of properties. More specifically, the platform makes it easy for multiple individuals to share the ownership of one property, lowering the barrier of entry for first-time property buyers and making the market more accessible to younger investors.

fictional case study

Responsibilities

User Research
UX & UI Design
User Testing

Tools

Google Forms
Procreate
Illustrator
Figma

Duration

6 weeks

The importance of leverage

A bit of preamble

To holistically understand the justification of the Shareable product, it is important to first understand a more fundamental 'why'. The concept of leverage is the foundation which all real estate investments are built upon and is the core driver behind Shareable.

Definition

Leverage refers to the use of debt (borrowed funds) to amplify returns from an investment or project. Investors use leverage to multiply their buying power in the market. Companies use leverage to finance their assets—instead of issuing stock to raise capital, companies can use debt to invest in business operations in an attempt to increase the net shareholder value.

Leverage in real estate

Leverage within the context of real estate: Property investors can use borrowed money to buy property and return a higher amount than that which they borrowed (thanks to the natural appreciation of the property market). Furthermore, if said investor treats the property as an “investment property” and rents it out to a tenant, the initial borrowed sum can be even further leveraged.

Justifying a product

The Problem

The data below is taken from various South African property and statistical organisations. When seen together these statistics paint a very clear picture; the price of mortgages (which I will be referring to as "bonds" for the remainder of this case study) are unaffordable for a large number of South Africans- particularly individuals under the age of 35 who are more likely to be classified as 'low income'.

Choosing a mechanism

Planning a solution

For the end users identified above (low income individuals under 35), the Fractional Ownership model shown below seems to be the most practical and feasible method for facilitating entry into the property market. The combination of this method being low risk, low effort and a source of passive income makes it a great fit.

Product opportunities

Plannning a solution

To better understand how the Shareable product could use Fractional Ownership in a way that would best satisfy the end user, I conducted a small scale survey with a group of 10 low income individuals (all under the age of 35). The survey questions were aimed at helping identify what the most important features of the product should be and also how the product might be structured. Below are some of the key insights I gained from the research.

show research questions

Competitor analysis

Planning a solution

There are currently a number of companies on the market aimed at fractionalising real estate in different ways. Below are four of the leading companies with a short description and a brief list of what I believe their product's are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

User flow

BUilding a solution

One of the recurring messages from the survey participants was the idea of ease-of-use and simplicity. Keeping this in mind, I ensured that the information architecture (IA) of the product was straight forward and uncomplicated. After the Login and Welcome pages, the product presents users with three core pages from which all of the primary and secondary features can be accessed. This simple architecture allows users to easily and quickly carry-out the most common tasks- checking their portfolio stats, interacting with friends, and finding new properties.

Wireframing

BUilding a solution

After creating and refining the structure of the product I began turning some of the key pages into low-fidelity hand drawn wireframes. During this phase of designing I focused primarily on layout and visual hierarchy. After this, I refined the wireframes into mid-fidelity versions. This process was less of an ideation phase and more of a refinement phase, which involved me focussing more closely on proportion, spacing and contrast.

Building a design system

BUilding a solution

I wanted Shareable's design system to reflect the product's sleek IA, and be as straight forward, clean and easy to interact with as possible. This resulted in me building a minimalistic yet bold visual system which utilises a modern, open-source, variable weight sans serif typeface with a simple yet striking colour palette.

Prototype V1.

BUilding a solution

With a fleshed out design system, user flow diagram and wireframe in pocket, I began building version 1 of the Shareable prototype. My goal with the UI design was to make something that needed very little onboarding and that was intuitive for first-time users. The result was an elegant mobile application that makes the process of investing in property with your friends easy to set up and track.

Conclusion

BUilding a solution

For the Shareable digital product to be made a reality; it would ultimately need to be the customer facing part of a Financial Services Provider. Creating and operating this business would not only require funding but also the implementation of extensive financial and legislative expertise. However, the customer facing mobile application, it's design, and it's information architecture could largely stay the same.

To view the full case study with user testing and the final prototype, view this page on desktop :)

User testing

BUilding a solution

After completing the first version of the Shareable prototype I conducted some small-scale user testing. During this phase I made several behavioural observations and also received some direct verbal feedback from testers.

Behaviourally, I noted the main snags that people were running into when trying to accomplish certain fundamental tasks and adjusted the UI and/or IA accordingly. The verbal user feedback also helped me adjust some minor structural issues with the product's IA. Below are a selection of A-B shots showcasing a few of the adjustments.

Filters/parameters

  • Differentiated between parameter sections more clearly using cards
  • Increased stroke on buttons, toggles & search bars for clarity
  • Increased toggle height & border radius to make for easier tapping

Your property

  • Moved up hidden stats from bottom
  • Added more visual representation of "payed" statistic
  • Added expansion arrows
  • Added hamburger menu to allow alternate navigation pathway
  • Removed notifications from page

Your stats

  • Added a payment section at top
  • Removed "Sharers" and added a payment timer (more relevant)
  • removed notifications and added hamburger menu

Find page

  • Started card carousel from the left instead of from the middle
  • Adjusted notification icon colouring and added hamburger menu
  • Switched "Properties" with "Friends" in toggle
  • Added context specific search text

Final prototype

BUilding a solution

For the Shareable digital product to be made a reality; it would ultimately need to be the customer facing part of a Financial Services Provider. Creating and operating this business would not only require funding but also the implementation of extensive financial and legislative expertise. However, the customer facing mobile application, it's design, and it's information architecture could largely stay the same.

Below is the final working prototype of the product, click the screen to start interacting!

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