Inside Housing design : my experience as a UX design intern at housing.com
It was a lazy Thursday afternoon, my end term exams were already over and I was done for the semester. I had applied to a few places for a winter design intern, but nothing solid had materialized yet. With nothing better to do with my time, I opened my laptop to be greeted by a mail from kanupriya, VP design at housing.com
Hi Parinishtha
Can we have a quick chat sometime today?
And voila, three days, a few phone calls and a plane ride later, I was in Mumbai, eagerly looking forward to my first day at work.
Now, anybody on the tech side of the startup ecosystem will tell you how legendary housing.com’s design team is. As an intern having worked there for about two months, I will tell you the same. I will also add that it is the quality, attention to detail, time and thought put into each pixel that has given it this status.
This was the first time I felt like a real designer. I had all the tools, resources and data I needed at my disposal, and I was able to perform at my creative best.
In this post I reflect upon some stuff I picked up working for a company that set the standards in design for Indian startups.
Ideate. Iterate. Improvise.
If Ernest Hemingway, James Mitchener, Neil Simon, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Pablo Picasso could not get it right the first time, what makes you think that you will?
— Paul Heckel
Don’t hesitate from spending time on a particular piece until you get it right. Just make sure you use a new artboard every time you make a change, don't delete any of your iterations. And yes, sync your file with Dropbox, it saves you from a lot of effort if you are sharing your work.
User engagement is a never-ending journey.
When a user enters your product, he navigates through the experience that you have created for him. It’s like hosting guests, only you never want them to leave. To be a good host, you need to know the in and out of what your user wants, and you've got to provide him with what he wants, when he wants it.
Accordingly, I spent the first few days studying different housing.com products. A small part of which involved creating user experience maps for housing’s agent app.
Defining the current experience and highlighting gaps in user experience, while also accounting for external touch-points.
Keep a notebook, scribble and sketch things as soon as they come to your mind.
This is a simple, effective and time-tested approach. There were occasions when I sat down to take feedback from my mentor, we discussed a lot of points that had a chance of escaping my mind later. As soon as I came back to my desk, I scribbled away everything, still fresh in my memory. Then I sketched multiple solutions that came to mind before plunging into working on my machine.
This helped me keep a record of my work and track my progress, while also providing a swift and easy method for ideation.
When in doubt, look at data.
Want to know if it’s a good idea to remove tabs from your navigation and rely solely on breadcrumbs? See how many people actually use those tabs.
Want to make a certain element more prominent and attract attention to it? Make changes in the UI, then analyse the increase in clicks.
When you practice data driven design, you have clear numbers to back all your design decisions. You don't need to rely solely on your intuition, assumptions about user behaviour or biases you may encounter while creating mental models.
One thing to keep in mind while drawing conclusions from user data is that user behaviour is a function of your current design, and therefore might be misleading at times.
Use actual content while prototyping.
Lorem ipsum and grayscale shapes do not give you a real picture of the information you are designing for. They may be used while creating low-fidelity wireframes, but it is strongly advised to use real or dummy data while designing high fidelity prototypes.
You can make your job easier by using Craft, content generator or day player. Here is an example from one of my projects:
Don't just look for inspiration online. Read books.
Being a self taught designer is a tricky business. I am an architecture student, which means I am aware of the universal principles of design and the creative design process, but when it came to the intricacies of product design and UX, I constantly had to rely on the internet.
During the course of this intern I did some bedtime UX reading, some ebooks and some copies borrowed from office (jbtw I prefer hard copies over soft ones, anytime). I have found that you can substantially aid your learning curve by reading up on good books. There are some great books out there that'll help you get a grasp on the vast field that is human computer interaction design. You can find some of them on my design shelf on goodreads.
Communicate. Take feedback.
This one is simple. When you have a team of talented people around you, there is a lot you can learn by just listening in on discussions and being vocal. Don’t hesitate to take feedback, and be open to criticism.
The housing.com office is an exciting place to work ( a special mention of the Nutella stocked pantry, the colourful sofas and the amazing views of Hiranandani area). The time I spent in Mumbai has been very eventful and I have grown leaps and bounds as a designer.
This brings me to the people at Housing Design, and the fantastic studio environment that they have created. We bonded over lunch together everyday, and the atmosphere in the design cabin was professional yet light-hearted.
So, to the housing team, thank you so much for having me, it’s been a lovely time. A big shoutout to kanupriya jain, Harsh Vijay, Rahul Bhosale, Jekin Gala, Gaurav Joshi, Sruthi Sivakumar and Neelam Gulrajani.
In case you're interested to know more on my internship project on redesigning IREF, you can do so here.
