OpenHome is an app that helps homeowners understand and manage their property through clear insights.
Led UI design and visual direction, aligning the app experience with the CEO’s vision and product goals.
Project Type: End-to-end app.
Role: Sole UX/UI designer in collaboration with OpenHome founder.
Industry: Real estate / Investments
Tools: Figma, FigJam
Duration: 3 months
JUMP TO SECTION
The brief
“Owning a home comes with a lot of data — but very little clarity”
Homeowners have access to a large amount of property-related data, but it is often fragmented, difficult to interpret, and not designed for everyday use.
As a result, they struggle to understand their home’s value, follow market changes, and make informed decisions about their property.
Starting point
The product direction was already defined by the founder, who had validated key assumptions and outlined a feature set.
My role was to translate this vision into a clear, usable interface and product experience.
Instead of starting from scratch, I focused on structuring and designing the interface in Figma — turning a list of features into a coherent product experience.
An unexpected issue
What didn’t work?
Users wanted shorter breathing exercises.
The fixed 3 minutes long breathing exercise was too long for the majority of the users trying the activity.
Users found the “do not disturb” mode difficult to reach.
The button labeled “Do Not Disturb” in the settings panel was too hard to find for most users.
What did work?
Users completed the task “reach and start a breathing exercise” with ease.
Users were delighted by the “follow” animation shown on the Breathing Exercise.
The users were enthusiast about the visualisation of the stress trends and related statistics.
Helping users FIND the Do Not Disturb feature
Priority revisions
Since users didn’t have issues with performing Actions, I focused the solution ideas on making the Do Not Disturb button easier to find and facilitating the breathing activity.
Idea 1: Replace the Pause button with a Do Not Disturb button.
Pro
Adding the button at the bottom of the app’s Home view makes it accessible and fast to reach. The button would prompt a screen to select the length of the Do not Disturb mode.
Con
Users would still need to access the app to stop the notifications.
Idea 2: Remove the duration of the Breathing exercise
Pro
Users can start the exercise immediately and free of any choice paralysis. To stop it, users can just tap on the Back button or any other button in the bottom navigation bar.
Con
There is no end of task flow. Users have to manually exit the loop when they feel better.
The final solution
Plan: Improve user activation rates by finding opportunities to integrate the Sumondo app with users’ daily routines.
Research: Users had an existing daily stress relieving routines outside of the app.
Solution: Notify users when their stress levels reach specific thresholds and allow them to perform a stress relieving exercise.
Where do we go from here?
Let’s see if the changes worked!
First, I would recommend conducting usability testing again with new participants. Have the changes made it easier for users to find the input exercise form?
If usability testing is not an option, I would recommend tracking the following metrics:
What percentage of users are performing on-app Actions? Are those users more engaged with our app overall?
How has the new feature impacted the user activation rate?
Other possible improvements
If the Breathing exercise is a hit
Are there ways to gamify the experience? Such as collecting points towards weekly challenges and other data which might encourage more the app usage on users’ phones.
Could we implement the existing reminders to help remind users to input their exercise information?
If the Breathing exercise form does not significantly impact the user activation rate, we may have to consider other solution option, such as improving the onboarding process.
What I learnt
Explaining design decisions through the lens of business goals.
I find it most natural to justify my design choices based on user insights, but I’m also learning to emphasise how those choices align with and support the company’s goals.
