Property Dashboard

Company

Homebase is a SaaS platform for residential and commercial properties to manage WiFi and its connected devices including access, security, and smart home technology.

Users

Staff of multifamily properties.

Challenge

First, property metrics are spread out across multiple pages within the platform making them difficult to quickly digest. In addition, customers don’t have the opportunity to see the quantifiable benefits of using the platform.

Role

The company’s sole end-to-end product designer working under the Chief Product Officer.

Business Needs

User Needs

One theme that came up repeatedly in past user interviews was the property manager’s need or desire to walk the property daily. This was their way to get an overview of their property and identify issues to address. How can we build a tool to give them a digital “walk through” of their property?

Align Goals

With the possibility of dozens of metrics to include and with multiple stakeholders wanting to weigh in on what to include, we needed to create a consensus on what will be most impactful as well as feasible for the minimum viable product.

To quickly find a resolution, I held a brainstorm session in FigJam to plot the impact and effort of each stakeholders’ contributed ideas. I first created 3 metrics categories. We then plotted each idea in an impact/effort matrix to determine which metrics were both feasible and useful to the user.

Next, we needed to collect this data and convert it into actionable milestones. I created a spreadsheet from the brainstorming session and collaborated with the Chief Product Officer to sort them into milestones we could accomplish in our agile development process.

Designing the Structure

While we were building out the project plan, I began looking at possible formats these metrics could fit in as a landing page dashboard.

I found that a 3 column approach would be best for both the content and typical desktop viewing, with responsive settings to allow for more narrow 1 or 2 column views. For more detailed metrics that include charts, the card column could span 2 columns and stack vertically on mobile devices.

I also considered various card heights, looking at cards that stacked in 2 per row. This would be preferable for metrics with less data to visualize per topic. However, I landed on a static size that is square in its most narrow view for simplicity in building our MVP and viewing content.

Iterating UI Solutions

After deciding on the 3 column design, I began iterating how to present metrics in a way that does not overwhelm the user. Creating equal hierarchy and visual weight for each “card” or section seemed beneficial to prevent a visual overload.

Handoff

In order to facilitate hand-off to the development team, I produced a high-fidelity wireframe in Figma to explain any necessary details and communicate expectations like anticipated features in additional milestones.

Results

The result is an easy-to-digest dashboard of important metrics that both make the user feel in control of the property and aware of the remarkable features Homebase provides them.

However, when asking for feedback and looking at page traffic, we aren’t seeing the level of interaction we had hoped.

User Persona

I believe there was some misguided stakeholder feedback during the initial project phase. The typical user of the platform is the property manager but they are less involved in the big picture of the property and more concerned with finding and “putting out fires.”

So I set out to define our users more concretely in 8 unique user personas so we can make informed decisions and ensure that design choices align with users’ preferences and requirements, resulting in a more user-centered product.

Next Steps