Property Manager
Web App
Context
Episense is a smart home device tech startup. This was a project that I led by taking existing designs and making UX improvements and UI changes in Figma. I conducted user research and the insights I gathered from interviews with property managers informed the designs shown here that I created. These designs are in development and will ship soon.
New UX Recommendations and UI Designs
Deprecated
The old dashboard was labeled “community dashboard.” This was not an expected label when conducting user interviews with property managers. Also insights gathered from interviews demonstrated that having a full width calendar here didn’t make sense because managers would often not see error alerts for devices so this would primarily appear as an empty state.
Updated Design
In the new design I renamed this to “device dashboard” to be more clear. Additionally I changed the device cards to better match the styling of the other card containers. I created an error state, and also made better naming conventions for the statuses like “secure” in reference to doors being closed rather than a generic “ok.” When interviewing property managers I also learned that an important aspect of device reporting is to monitor vacant unit energy consumption so I moved this feature under the device cards to hold more prominence above the fold. And removed the full width calendar because it didn’t make sense to have it occupy so much prominence here particularly since it would primarily be in an empty state.
Deprecated
The prior residents dashboard had a confusing design with toggles for recent guest or vendor activity. And similar to the device dashboard, property managers said a calendar view didn’t make sense for their needs.
Updated Design
After interviewing property managers, I discovered that they would want the ability to easily add data entries of new residents into their system. Based on this insight, I designed large “add resident” CTA options. Additionally property managers shared they often might have a use case of needing to look up one individual resident to quickly find unit information or contact information. To satisfy this user need, I designed a search input as well as filters to quickly find different resident segments such as “future residents” vs. “current residents.”
Deprecated
The former access dashboard had the full width calendar which property managers reported not needing in this instance either.
Updated Design
In the new designs I created I recycled the prominent “add new” buttons at the top. I created a more minimal calendar view. I also segmented the page and features into two different categories “vendor access” vs “guest access” to create better information architecture. If I have more time on this project or the ability to interview more property managers I would like to spend more time evaluating the toggles to turn on and off access and create a better solution.
Deprecated
The old units page had the filters on the far right which was a non traditional design pattern.
Updated Designs
With the new units page I moved the filters to the left to be more discoverable. I also changed the UI to have more recognizable checkboxes rather than the circles in the old design. I added another visual indicator to make “notice” status more scannable since that often required a follow up action from the property manager to that resident to confirm if they are or aren’t renewing their lease.
This was another alternative on the filters that I made for unit devices. I added color indicators for the connectivity statuses and also made more prominent “high priority” and “medium priority” color labels. Additionally I included a selection indicator in blue, with a side panel that would appear to show more details of the individual device once selected in the list view.
Deprecated
In the old property configuration page with staff permission settings I found this design to be fairly incomprehensible and cumbersome to adjust, as did the property managers I interviewed about this page.
Updated Designs
In the new property configuration page, I created this view to make global changes based on staff member types. For example property managers tend to need access to viewing and editing most components of our dashboard, where leasing managers might have different parts of the portal they need permission access.
Above shows the new property configuration page in an expanded state, demonstrates the ability to still make some custom staff permissions adjustments based on the individual team member. During interviews with property managers they expressed that especially if someone else is on vacation they might want to temporarily permit a different staff member to have extra control and access while covering for the team member that is out.