FlexHabitat | Branding and platform design
How can international students shop for their new home in The Netherlands?
Year
2022
Duration
2 weeks
Client
FlexHabitat
Role
UX/UI designer
FlexHabitat is a start-up, selling good quality, second-hand furniture. But how can users discover and shop for the items?
During an incubator program in The Netherlands, my co-founder and I noticed a gap in the home market and for that, we created a new value proposition/start-up called FlexHabitat.
We had identified a problem and had a fit and validated solution for it. However, we didn’t have a killer branding or website/shopping experience to help our users find their next home.
And an online shopping experience.
FIXME
A brand guide.
FIXME
We identified a strategic way to increase value through new touchpoints.
💡 A business conference.
My approach
I designed the overall website’s customer journey
The website would entail 4 main steps, being 1) the discovery of furniture; 2) the selection of furniture; 3) the payment, selection of time and date; and 4) the view of one’s order.
Design thinking and continuous learning
We also went to a travel conference, to stay up to date about the industries developments.
We identified there was a ‘valley of disconnectedness’ where users weren’t hearing from us prior to a trip.
Prior to a trip, such as the case of this business conference, users who had either downloaded the app or hadn’t, were not getting to hear from us why this app could support their trip.
That is why we brainstormed and prototyped 2 new touchpoints in this pre-trip phase:
a new destination for this conference in the app, featuring the best travel advice, the best hotels, restaurants and activities to do while in the city
an app push notification to communicate this new feature
an email campaign for those employees who hadn’t yet downaloaded. the app
What we delivered
A new in-app destination for the trip and multichannel communication.
If it is not out there, it doesn’t exist. This also applies to your skills.
Being a service designer in 2022 means that the discipline is still novel and difficult to grasp in other industries. Being a service designer also means that I can also do user research, UX, and UI projects, so I wanted to take on the challenge of creating an online shopping experience for one of my start-ups and showcase my skills in these design disciplines.