PRODUCT DESIGN
Spacious
2015 - 2017
Spacious aims to provide a better experience for buying, renting and selling property.
Challenge
Hong Kong's real estate market is one of the most expensive and complex in the world.
How might we simplify the process of finding, buying, renting, and selling property for both locals and expats, while providing reliable market data?
Goal
- Create a frictionless browsing and listing experience across all platforms
- Develop a personalized system to keep users updated on listings and market data
- Establish a trustworthy platform connecting buyers and sellers
- Design a scalable and sustainable design system for future growth
Outcome
- Successfully launched the first in-app AR experience in Hong Kong's real estate market
- Established Spacious as a reliable source of housing data in Hong Kong
- Featured in major news outlets including The New York Times, CNBC, and SCMP
Highlights
Designed for Growth
Spacious was designed to be accessible everywhere. In developing a new component, I considered all disciplines and constraints between iOS and Android, as well as the website on mobile devices and desktops, so that I could manage our scalable and sustainable design system.
Flowchart for Clarity
As the sole designer at Spacious, I developed a flowchart system for communicating with stakeholders and developers, and always had the document accessible whenever we needed references. This made it much easier to customize or add new components to our platform to meet the needs of buyers and sellers, and ensured we always had an overview of the structure of our platform.
Market Snapshot & Transaction
As Spacious established itself as one of the most reliable housing data sources in Hong Kong, we introduced a market snapshot widget on the landing page to give users a brief look of the latest housing trends.
Augmented Reality
In Hong Kong, properties below market price are often a bad sign rather than a bargain, especially when it’s haunted. With that, we launched the first in-app augmented reality experience in the real-estate market for buyers to view nearby haunted properties. The ghost icon I designed was featured in The New York Times.
Key Learnings
- Importance of a flexible design system in managing a complex, multi-platform product
- Value of innovative features like AR in differentiating from competitors
- Significance of clear communication tools in a fast-paced startup environment
- Impact of data visualization in providing value to power users