Relocity
Reimagining moving decisions for the growing remote workforce.
Relocity is a new website that allows remote workers to get matched with their perfect city. With the remote workforce tripling in the last 3 years, there is a growing number of people who are no longer bound to a city due to their work. With heightened flexibility, remote workers can now input what matters most to them in a city and get matched with their perfect new home.
This project was completed as part of the Design Lab UX Academy Curriculum.
Mobile First Responsive Design
Project Type
Idea Generation
Research
UX Design
UI Design
Branding
Scope
Figma
Google Suite
Google Meet
Goodnotes
Rytr
Tools
3 weeks
120 hours
Timeline
The Problem
Making making moving decisions is overwhelming. Most people make moving decisions based off of their employment. Imaging being a remote worker who can move anywhere?
While that initially sounds like a great thing, it can quickly get overwhelming. Remote workers may know what their priorities are, but matching that to a physical city is a huge emotional, physical, and financial burden.
The Objective
Create a product that allows remote workers to input their priorities and needs and get matched with their perfect city in 10 minutes or less.
Easing the burden of researching cities will decrease the emotional, physical, and financial load that remote workers can incur while making moving decisions.
The Process
Discovery
To start the discovery phase, I began with secondary research to understand the viability of a product like this. This research confirmed a growing remote workforce sector as well as increased move rates within this population.
Next, I dove into a competitive analysis so that I could understand what services are currently available for remote workers who are looking to relocate, and then conducted user interviews to understand remote workers’ needs when it comes to making these moving decisions.
Delving into the mind of a moving remote worker...
I conducted 5 interviews with remote workers who have completed a move in the last year, or are planning to move within the next year. By including remote workers on both ends of a move I was able to get perspectives from all phases of the moving process.
What challenges do remote workers face when making moving decisions?
“The flexibility can become overwhelming because there are so many choices to choose from.”
“There was a lot of opportunity in where to go and what to do”
“Finding the balance between my needs and my partner’s needs was challenging.”
“I’ve pushed off moving simply because I don’t have the time to invest in figuring out where to go.”
What resources did you use to help you make moving decisions?
“I spent a lot of time googling. It was hard to find quality information though. There are lots of blogs.”
“I used google, but it’s tough to sort through all of that information.”
“I talked with family and friends who live different places, but they all have their own objectives.”
“I did lots of “best cities for....” type of searches to find cities that had what I was interested in.”
In a sector that is growing, remote workers are faced with too much flexibility, long researching processes, stress, and no comprehensive service to help them make moving decisions.
Closing in on User-Centered Design
Uncovering Nuances Through Personas
Through my research, two personas presented themselves very clearly. While sharing some key attributes, they also diverged in many ways.
Creating personas brings light to their unique motivations, which is vital during the development phase.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Now that it was clear who they are and what their problems were, it was time to get clear on what they need. Affinity mapping allowed me to extract these key themes and insights:
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Factors for moving include: safety, education system, weather, environment, access to activities, political affiliation, and cost of living.
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Making moving decisions is stressful.
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Community is vital for overall happiness after moving.
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The best way to know if a city is the right fit is to travel there.
Since this is a new product, I developed multiple point of view and how might we statements. These were the two most viable how might we questions.
How might we help remote workers experience less stress when making decisions about where to move?
How might we make finding ways to connect with your new community a simpler process?
Due to the availability of community building apps like MeetUp, Yubo, and Bumble BFF I decided to prioritize this how might we question.
Exploring Potential Solutions
Next, I began exploring solutions using my User Personas and HMW questions as my north star. To do this, I utilized brainstorming and storyboarding.
Moving forward with a solution
Utilize a list of specific questions that when answered honestly creates a curated list of cities that match their specific needs. Upon matching they can chat with a local and ask any specific questions they may have about living in a place. This idea is a more streamlined process that is more likely to reduce stress and ambiguity for remote workers.
Main User Flow
Visualizing a User Focused Design
Through low-fi wireframing and rapid sketching I began to attach design concepts and patterns that could potentially work for this responsive design. With this being a start to finish project, I decided to proceed with a visual design first approach, rather than a content first approach. Using the user flow the following key screens were identified:
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Home Screen
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Quiz Questions
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Log In/Sign Up
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Matched Cities
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City Details
Home Screens
With this being a mobile first responsive design, it was important that I chose patterns that would work well on a multitude of screen sizes. For this reason, I chose to proceed with tabs over an accordion on the City Details page of the design.
Time to open Figma and take these to mid-fidelity.
We know who our users are, what problems they are facing, how we are solving it, but we don’t yet know who we are? It’s time to define the brand.
Welcome to Relocity
Guiding
Exploratory
Transparent
Distilled
Relaxed
A moodboard is the perfect way to gather inspiration
Logo creation from concepts to final design
The next step was twofold. It was time to write the copy and apply the branding.
With idea generation from Rytr, an AI writing tool, I was able to get a start on the UX writing. Keeping my users in mind, I began to develop the questions that would be a part of the product, as well as the benefits that would most influence a potential user to try the product.
Refining the Experience Through Testing
I performed usability tests with 5 users from my target audience to determine the necessary revisions to make the experience more intuitive and pleasant.
Completed the user flow in under 10 minutes.
100%
Error rate while navigating the user flow.
0%
Reacted with positive emotion to the design.
40%
Priority Revisions from the Usability Tests
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Application of color needs to be improved
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Contrast needs to be elevated to improve heirarchy and readability
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Landing page content needs to be refined
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Quiz questions and answers need to be clarified so they are easier to answer.
Version 1
Version 2
Final Prototype
Final Thoughts and Future Considerations
This case study highlights the importance and relationship between UX and UI. During the usability testing it was clear that the usability of the product was on point, and at the same time the UI was detracting from the overall user experience. By testing and iterating, I was able to create a cohesive product that functions well and creates the desired emotional experience for the user.
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If this product were to launch, some of the main metrics that I would want to track are sign up rates after completing the quiz, satisfaction scores with matched city results, and quiz completion rates. Tracking these metrics would make clear what adjustments would need to be made to the product to meet business, user, and technical needs.
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In addition, there are many more premium features that could be developed alongside this main functionality of the product, such as an expanded neighborhood match feature, booking a visit with a local guide, a community building feature where you can connect with other remote workers moving to the city, and more. With this expanded feature set it would be easier to diversify revenue streams.