Relocating is one of the most stressful experiences anyone can undergo in a lifetime. It gets worse when you have to move internationally, with family or to where you do not understand the language.

The idea was fleshed out following personal experiences. I moved to the UK in 2016 and experience the void of not knowing where to start to make my new city feel like home. From dealing with culture shock to managing bureaucratic processes and moving logistics. I saw others in a similar situation as me were not left out of this stressful process.

I was tasked with Rapid Prototyping Sprints, UX Research, UI Design, Brand Identity, Internal Design System with Reusable Components. As a designer, my role is to identify a problem, facilitate brainstorming sessions to identify opportunities that creates value for users.

The process of relocating could be improved. The idea brainstorming and prioritisation of features based on user research and user feedback, should result in a working prototype focused on helping people make their new place a home, develop social capital, professional connections and navigate the complex settlement systems.

                       

The brief was simple; identify a problem in that space, and design a solution for it. This led to a Discovery session to understand the market needs.  One problem was prevalent - Moving is stressful.

As there are quite a number of moving companies, I found a gap in holistic support for people moving to a new country, especially when language barriers are existent and they don’t know what to do or who to turn to for advice.

While I could relate to the problem, it is paramount that I design a product for a global audience. After the discovery stage, I moved on to Research. The goal was to understand the challenges of the wider target audience and see if there were any common themes or trends which I could focus on.

I conducted a blend of personal interviews and survey. The survey featured both open ended and close ended questioning style to encourage clear communication of pain points encountered and how they were being resolved at present.

                       

Following the discovery and research, I went on to define the target users. The design features will be informed in line with the goals, needs, experience and pain points of the typical user. I explored three key case types:

Anna Williams is an international student trying to relocate herself to the UK

James is a new hire who receives a lump sum from his employer to manage a move abroad

Maria is an British resident living in Thailand, trying to plan her move back to the UK using a DIY toolkit. She has had bad experiences with traditionally expensive relocation firms with little automation and low online presence.

According to the survey, a large percentage of respondents with experience of moving to a foreign country were aged 18 - 34 and move abroad mainly for work, study and adventure. 

The main processes people were encountering problems when moving abroad with included 

- Administration process complexity & Paperwork 

- Culture shock

- Lack of clear information and guidance from government websites or other resources that provided guidance of the moving process. 

- Language barriers and gap in high quality translations of required documents

- Lack of community and social integration, not knowing who to speak with

- Dealing with logistics like finding an accommodation, finding their way around, settling utilities and managing the anxiety of moving 

Generally, people who move want to organize their lives and find the best settlement resources in one place.

Having identified my user and problem statement, I went on to understand more about what resolutions were already available for people moving to a foreign country. 

A significant percentage resolve these through communication with someone who has been through similar experience and leveraging social media groups for guidance. 

A lot of the online resources were website articles with broad information on local cultures, less personalized mobile and web apps.

Mobile apps that exist focus on tourism and visitations as opposed to relocation and settlement

Quite a number of sales websites like relocation management companies and law firms are aimed at attracting customers

Some websites were either unclear or inconsistent.

                       

I structured my findings with an Affinity Diagram to help understand and digest what I had gathered from my survey and interviews

            

There were many potential features that could be included for users. However to streamline the process, it was important to hone in on the wow features. I employed the RICE scoring model for prioritization to make better informed decisions. 

Reach - The intention was the gain at least 1000 signups to beta test within the first month.

Impact - The signups should result in at least 50% new conversions (quantitative objective). To increase customer delight, I prioritized features with high and massive impact.

An easy to follow guide to processes

Connect with people who have similar experiences and can provide help

Aggregator for service providers

Confidence - High confidence at 90%

Effort - This took into account the features to include in a Minimum Viable Product which will be built with no-code tools. 

Dashboard

Web app and 1 page dashboard

Light and Dark theme with a lot of personality by using colours 

Overall presentation of information in a way that was not too difficult or overwhelming

I designed a user flow for the app so I could identify what people using the product would need to do at each stage and so what would need to see.

The end user is the individual relocating. 

I developed a scenario in order to visualise how people would use it and help to generate a better understanding of how the product can helps people like my user persona, Anna.

           

I developed the mockup of the main screens based on the prioritised features

                        

The next step involved developing the mockup into a clickable prototype. 

I developed my Style Guide to show the colours, fonts, icons and other elements of my product I wanted to stay consistent and on-brand. The use of Auto-Layout and Variables on Figma made this process seamless. The font style, Manrope, was chosen with focus on legibility. The gradient color style, a blend of blue and pink, was chosen as the main color in line with dynamism and to reflect the variability that come with moving to a new location. Blue associates with stability, trust, intelligence, and truth.

                     

The Homepage presents users with simple prompts to Sign In or Create an Account. 

After creating an account, users will be treated with a dashboard which will contain a spread of information highlighting the key features of the application. Users can track their relocation progress, get a quick snapshot of their pending tasks and preview updates from agents.

                       

User can select from either an open-ended list of relevant service providers and professionals.

We are exploring whether or not an API is possible to build for the amount of suppliers we will require or if it should simply act as a directory with useful updated information on different suppliers. In this case, the user will just be redirected to the suppliers own website, with an affiliate link attached.

Because the lean UX technique was being adopted, a major focus was obtaining user feedback as early as possible.

The testing made room for some iterations to make improvements in structure and content

                       

Within the next 3/6 months, I’ll be focused on testing, iterating and developing the MVP on Webflow. The MVP is a core concept in lean UX. 

Collaboration with the entire team made the lean UX process possible 

Obtaining feedback as early as possible, working in rapid, iterative cycles cannot be overemphasized 

The research can be ‘constrained’ by using assumptions about the user, the product and the use case to create hypothesis but this means Testing! Testing!! Testing!!!

Prioritization is important to build the most basic version of the product.

View Prototype  →