Role
Principal Designer (solo designer)
Team
Collaborated with Product Owners, Project Managers, Business Analysts, and Engineers
Deliverables
Product strategy alignment, user research and information architecture, wireframes and prototypes, user interface, design system creation, developer handoff and implementation oversight.
Year
2023 – 2024
The problem
A platform that had outgrown its own product
Homeviews is the UK’s only verified resident review platform — helping renters make informed decisions about where to live. The platform had scaled quickly over time — and the product hadn’t kept up. A fragmented interface, no design system, and decisions driven by stakeholders rather than users had created a site that struggled to reflect what the platform actually stood for: verified, trustworthy resident reviews.
01 Discovery and research
User research and testing
Usability testing revealed three core friction points — unclear navigation, lack of review credibility signals, and misleading property listings. These findings were mapped against key insights (users skim rather than read, value area stats, and respond well to visual hierarchy) and balanced with what already worked well, such as review content quality, authentic images, and filter functionality. This synthesis shaped the design priorities moving forward.
Competitor analysis and benchmark
A comparative analysis of Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, and Airbnb was conducted to benchmark product features, strengths, and weaknesses. While each platform offers robust review ecosystems, common pain points emerged across all three — including credibility issues, cluttered interfaces, and inconsistent review quality. These gaps informed opportunities to differentiate and improve the product experience.
02 Wireframe iteration
Early wireframe
A low-fidelity wireframe was created at the start of the iteration phase to establish content hierarchy and layout structure without getting distracted by visual details. The focus was on defining key sections — search, featured listings, trending topics, and area exploration — keeping decisions fast and easy to challenge before any real commitment to the design direction.
Mid-fidelity iteration
Following the first stakeholder review, the wireframe was evolved into a mid-fidelity version with more realistic content and refined layout choices. Key changes included introducing trust indicators (review count, developer stats, satisfaction rate) to address the credibility concerns surfaced during user testing, and shifting from a uniform grid to a featured card pattern to create stronger visual weight and help users identify standout properties more quickly.
03 Design System
Building the foundation
A design system was built from scratch to ensure consistency and scalability across the entire product. Grounded in Homeviews’ brand identity, it defines the core visual language — primary typeface (Circular Std), colour palette, spacing, and iconography — alongside a library of 80+ reusable components ranging from cards and review blocks to map integrations and location tags. Having a shared system in place allowed design and development to move faster and speak the same language, reducing friction at every handoff.
05 Final UI – Development page
Know the development before you decide
The development page was redesigned from the ground up — refining type hierarchy, colour and spacing to improve scannability, and introducing dedicated sections for facilities, awards and location so users can build a complete picture of a development the moment they land. A developer card on the right gives quick access to the developer’s profile and ranking, keeping everything users need within reach.
Developments score at a glance
A visual rating breakdown was introduced to let users assess a development’s overall score at a glance, without reading through every review.
Filter your reviews
Redesigned the reviews filter panel for clarity and accessibility — making it easier for all users to narrow down results quickly.
Developments ratings – Desktop
The review page was redesigned to surface credibility and context at a glance. Each review is structured as a self-contained block — combining star ratings broken down by category (facilities, design, location, value, management), verified author badges, written content, manager responses, and an in-context image gallery. Popular mention tags allow users to quickly scan recurring themes without reading every review, while filter and sort controls put users in charge of the content they see. The result is a page that builds trust through transparency rather than asking users to take reviews at face value.
Developments ratings – Mobile
The review experience was fully adapted for mobile, ensuring users can access the same depth of information on the go. Tapping into a review’s image gallery opens a full-screen viewer with room-by-room context, giving prospective residents a realistic sense of the property’s actual conditions — not just curated marketing shots. To further protect content integrity, users can report any review they believe contains inaccurate or outdated information through a simple in-line form, keeping the community accountable and the data trustworthy.
06 Final UI – Company page
Know who's building your next home
A dedicated developer page was redesigned to give companies full ownership of their presence on the platform — bringing together key information, stats, verified reviews and their own developments, so prospective residents have everything they need to make a confident decision in one place.
Everything you need, before you click
Development cards were redesigned to surface the most relevant information at a glance — bringing together property image, star rating, review snippet, price range, tenure type, area ranking, and any awards or launch status badges. The goal was to let users confidently compare developments without needing to click into each one, reducing unnecessary navigation and keeping the browsing experience fast and focused.
Seamless across every screen
The card layout was fully adapted for mobile, maintaining the same information density and hierarchy as the desktop version. Key details like rating, price, and tenure type are immediately visible on smaller screens, ensuring a consistent and frictionless experience regardless of the device users browse from
07 Final UI – Map view
Find your next home on the map
A map feature was introduced following direct feedback from user interviews — giving users a spatial view of developments and helping them make more informed decisions about location. Developments can be filtered directly on the map, including the option to surface premium listings only, making it easy to narrow down options without losing context. The experience was also fully optimised for mobile, ensuring the same level of clarity and control on smaller screens.
Results
- Led the end-to-end design of a review platform for residential developments, from discovery through to a live, shipped product
- Conducted usability testing and competitor benchmarking to identify key trust and credibility issues, directly informing design decisions
- Delivered a design system from scratch — 80+ components, full token architecture, built on Homeviews’s brand guidelines
- Redesigned core product surfaces including review pages, listing cards, and search experience across desktop and mobile