Perch'n Refresh
In 2018, I worked at Perch'n in various capacities for an internship then co-op. As a start-up focused on providing an off-campus housing search service, the company aimed to improve its user experience. My role was to refresh both their iOS app and website to enhance usability and help the platform gain traction.
Problem
Fortunately, the project started with a functional app, website, and an established style guide. However, several challenges required careful navigation:
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A small user base with limited data for meaningful analysis.
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A PHP-based website, which was difficult to translate to iOS and lacked scalability for future development.
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Limited design resources beyond basic elements like fonts, colors, and icons.
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Being the sole designer in a junior role, handling all design responsibilities independently.
Plan
My initial steps included:
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Getting familiar with the tools I would use for design and development.
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Gaining a thorough understanding of the sitemap and the full functionality of Perch'n.
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Creating an Adobe Creative Suite library aligned with the company’s branding.
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Starting the process of sketching concepts and building wireframes.
My goal was to establish a cohesive look and feel across platforms, laying the groundwork for a rapid redesign of each page. While I wasn’t handling development work immediately, I ensured that all design decisions were made with development considerations in mind.
Research
My research focused primarily on competitive analysis, comparing Perch'n to similar housing search tools like Zillow. While the primary audience was college students, I also considered others living in college towns who might benefit from the platform.
To pinpoint key areas for improvement, I conducted an in-depth critique of the Perch'n user experience.
Design
The hurdles we aimed to tackle immediately were:
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Establish universal user interface elements.
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Identify familiar interactions users can be expected to understand (e.g., hamburger menu, "favorite" items, interactive inputs).
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Modernize navigation by pinning it to the bottom of the screen.
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Simplify interactions while ensuring they remain intuitive and understandable.
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Maintain consistent colors tied to specific elements or interactions where appropriate.
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Ensure every call-to-action is clear and easily identifiable.
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Keep on iterating!
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Organize the sitemap and track progress on completed and pending pages in Adobe.
Refine
Moving further along into this project, my focus was to:
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Conduct additional competitive analysis of similar housing search tools with my work done so far.
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Document design decisions for future reference, anticipating updates.
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Create and polish as many pages as possible, adhering to the newly established design guidelines.
Development
Precursory work for the updated mobile app was completed using Swift, but not much progress was made over the final months of my co-op.
A lightweight foundation was built and tested using several of the finalized designs.
Conclusion
My time at Perch'n was insightful yet difficult. I was often tasked with work I could not receive mentorship on, and the work environment was not very structured. The team was very small, and an offshoot idea built from owners whose main source of income were their real estate properties.
I feel I still gained experience completing design work with a bigger scope than anything I had done before. This helped me gain confidence that I could potentially make the shift from a front-end developer to a user experience designer.
