Rental Listing Expiration & Renewal Rules

Project Type

Industrial project

Tools

Figma

Duration

Jan 2021 - Mar 2021

My Role

Product Designer

UX Researcher

 
 

Introduction

Overview:

Yirental is a home rental platform for renters and homeowners.

Problem Statement:

There are too many long-term rental listings on the platform that have not been updated for a long time, resulting in low efficiency in renters’ search experience and homeowner’s property management process.

Users:

Renters and homeowners in the U.S.

My Roles:

I am the sole designer and responsible for problem discovery, ideation, wireframes, prototype, user testing, iteration and hand-off to developers.

Constraints:

The project has not been developed and launched. The impact of the project cannot be measured by the defined metrics.

 

Research

 

Define Problems

By collecting users’ online reviews and feedback, we found the issue below needs to be resolved on our rental platform:

Users cannot browse long-term rental listings efficiently due to a lot of expired or outdated long-term listings on the platform.

For potential/existing renters:

  • A waste of time in browsing listings with outdated information and contacting homeowners.

  • The available and ideal rental listing posts are buried in the outdated listing posts.

For homeowners:

  • Extra effort in dealing with inquiries for the unavailable listings.

  • Forgot or too busy to unlist unavailable listings.

 
 
 

Define Objectives

  • Increase listing search efficiency for renters: Help renters browse rental listings efficiently and effectively.

  • Better property management experience for homeowners: Help homeowners manage properties easily and efficiently.

 
 
 

Define Metrics

  • Number of the expired/outdated long-term rental listings on the platform

  • Frequency of updating listing status for homeowners

 
 

Ideate

 
 

Competitor Analysis

I conducted a competitor analysis to compare and categorize other rental platforms’ listing expiration and renewal rules.

 
 
Competitor Analysis.png
 
 
 

Design Solutions

Explore Design Opportunities

Based on the issues, I discovered the root causes, design opportunities to propose solutions accordingly.

 
 
 
design solutions.png
 
 
 

Explore Approaches

I brainstormed different approaches and got feedback on design review meetings from other designers. All the ideas were narrowed down to two potential approaches below. After another design review and listing out pros and cons for each one, Approach 2 was considered the more simplified and intuitive flow for users.

 
 
Approaches.png
 
 
 
Approache interface.png
 
 
 

Refined Flow

With a defined approach, I developed a more refined flow for rental listing expiration and renewal rules on the platform. This flow chart helps me communicate with designers, PM and developers efficiently.

 
 
 
 

Prototype

There are two major actions users need to take for their listings: renew listings regularly and relist expired listings. The prototypes are based on Yirental design system.

 
 
 

Renew listings that will expire soon: receive notification & email reminder - renew listing(s) - confirmation message

 
 
 
 
 

Relist expired listings: receive notification & email reminder - relist expired listing(s) - confirmation message

 
 
 
 
 

Test

Listing expiration and renewal rules will affect a large number of homeowner users on the platform. To ensure the rules are easy to understand and follow, I conducted usability testing with 5 homeowners.

 
 
User Testing.png
 
 
 

Iterate

 
 

Feedback 1 - “I looked for ‘publish‘ button, then realized the way is to change ‘unlisted‘ status.“

Iteration: Change listing status in a dropdown VS One click on “publish“ button

It is not obvious for participants that they need to change the listing status in a dropdown from “Unlisted“ to “List“. A CTA button to “publish“ an expired listing will be more intuitive.

 
 
Relist - detail page.png
 
 
 

Feedback 2 - “What is the difference between ‘renew’ and ‘relist’? They look too similar.“

Iteration: new term for publishing an expired listing VS same term for publishing a new listing and an expired listing

To distinguish two completely different actions: renew a listing and publish an expired listing again, use an existing term “publish“ instead of “relist“ can reduce users’ cognitive workload.

 
 
 
 

Conclusion

 
 

Next Steps

  1. “Batch” feature for listing management.

    For MVP version, users are able to renew/publish one listing at a time. It will be more efficient for users with large number of listings to “batch renewing” or “batch publishing”.

  2. Help/FAQ page for users to better understand the rules.

    Tooltips are provided for users to understand each step. However, a FAQ page with detailed explanation of listing expiration and renewal rules helps users systematically understand the features before hand.

  3. Paid service for listing extension.

    As revenue growth is one of the most important business goals, paid service for listing extension could be a potential feature contributing to the goal.

 
 
 

What I leanred

  1. Consider scalability in the design process.

    The listing expiration notification should apply not only for one listings, but also for multiples listings if they expire at the same time.

  2. Collaborate with teams working on other related features.

    I collaborated seamlessly with other teams working on property management features to develop optimal experience for homeowner users.

 
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