Redesigning leases and tenant management
How I shaped the design strategy and led the execution of a core product redesign to increase user engagement and satisfaction
B2C prop tech startup | Responsive web | Sole designer | Mar 2024 - current
My role
I lead all design work from ideation to shipping except for the early survey. The work was delayed multiple times over the years.
I collaborate closely with one PM and three engineers. This project is ongoing, reaching one year.
What is Stessa?
Stessa, acquired by Roofstock in 2021, is a prop tech Saas that helps real estate investors track and manage their financial performance of their rental properties.
The product has evolved from financial management and the company aims to deliver a one-stop shop for property management.
What’s the problem?
Leases & Tenants is clunky, unintuitive, and frustrating to understand - we know it and our users know it.
Property owners and managers have a lot on their plate when managing tenants.
Each month, 8,000 properties with active leases are added, but customers drop off quickly.
Leases & Tenants was neglected for some time and was long due for a major overhaul.
The process
Listen and learn
Absorb insights from the business and team to deeply understand the problem, scope, and decisions made.
Identify critical issues and plan
Analyze existing data to target priorities and drive the roadmap.
Test and validate
Validate concepts with users. Assess feedback to incorporate or monitor.
Build, measure impact, and learn
Collaborate with Eng to build and ship fast, and with Product to track and optimize.
Before
Multiple leases are cluttered together on a single page, full of usability issues
The main problems:
General clunkiness
Limited tenant information
Lack of customizable fees
Unintuitive move-in and out process
After
Each tenancy is given its own space, allowing landlords to easily navigate lease details
Listen and learn
I met with Stessa teams and stakeholders to understand why this work is important and the history behind each product area.
Stepping back, I realized that the leases work is the first stop in improving the entire lead to lease experience all the way from listing a vacant unit to moving out tenants.
We want to enable a property to move seamlessly across each stage of its journey.
Business goal
Increase engagement
Better lease management encourages landlords to utilize other core features and integrate their property lifecycle into Stessa.
Increase retention
Currently landlords find better lease management solutions, prompting them to fully switch to competitors that offer a comprehensive service.
Success metrics
Increase in lease renewals
Lapsed users add leases during onboarding but are not updated or renewed. An increase in renewals signals improved engagement and retention.
Increase rent collection adoption by 10%
Stessa’s most engaged users are those enrolled in the Rent Pay feature, which offers automated rent payments and a tenant portal.
Identify critical issues
Survey (210 respondents)
User Interviews (8 participants, 45 mins)
Hard to scan, no clear path from an applicant to tenant
Restrictive navigation
Overwhelming layout
Information overload and lack of hierarchy
Lack of guidance and clarity around managing deposits
Deposit confusions
Test and validate
How do users want to best navigate to leases?
Tree test and wireframe test (60 respondents)
Users expect to see their leases as part of property details. They also want a smoother experience connecting vacancy listings, applications, and leases.
I secured stakeholder buy-in for the proposal to address Properties in tandem with Leases.
We adjusted the roadmap and onboarded a contractor who I collaborated with closely to deliver a cohesive experience.
How do we draw the line between renewals, new leases, and past leases?
Users were making the same mistakes over and over again, entering data in the wrong lease and deleting it shortly.
Users expected a separate lease space for each unique tenancy.
They don’t look at past renewals or leases beyond rent amounts.
Final designs
Users can scan the history of past, current, and future tenants and statuses.
They are in control of which lease they want to dive deeper into.
A structured move-out process provides the clarity and feedback needed to keep track of security deposit refunds and ended leases.
Build, measure, and learn
Results
The project build was delayed.
During handoff, the engineers were shifted to a banking POC and more urgent business initiatives due to the merger with Mynd and acquisition of RentPrep.
There are no tangible results reported yet beyond positive stakeholder and user feedback from tests.
The new list page will be released soon, allowing us to track the funnel from property to leases, and compare new lease completion rates.
Reflections
The redesign improves overall experience and usability, but the strongest impact lies in reducing stressors and providing intuitive guidance during difficult situations such as:
A landlord wants to evict a tenant for missed rent payments.
A landlord needs to educate themselves on the state laws surrounding security deposit limits and pet deposits to avoid legal issues.
This is how we can truly help landlords and investors feel confident in their daily decision-making.
I plan to take this redesign to this next phase because inevitably creating and entering a lease should be done with a simple AI prompt.