Connected Properties

Startup company branding and logo, web application & app

Connected Properties is a bespoke property management software, ideal for multiple property management, with a user-friendly interface that is simple to navigate, giving the user access to their property information to keep track of resources and finances all in one place.

Connected Properties started as an idea with an approach to the business by an individual who wanted a system to manage a portfolio of properties and through its insight provide a basis for a start-up. Another of the goals was to find effective Agile systems and ways of working to facilitate a development team, overseas.

I started by carrying out initial requirement gathering exercises where I worked out the functionality of the application, its purpose and business requirements and what kind of data would be applied and gathered, who would use the application and in what way.

I made use of user personas, the [main] actors, epics & goals and worked my way through user stories and scenarios and inputted these into JIRA where they became part of the agile system and the basis for JIRA design & development tasks, using Gherkin.

Once the backbone of the functionality was established the project was wireframed with 'views' in mind where low and high fidelity designs would sit. These wireframes could be tested and were linked to JIRA issues for developers. Once some order was established to the system, high fidelity wireframe views were made from my creative design and the design guidelines document. Any change in scope and change of view would be quickly picked up by development, could be amended and reopened, so the way of working had great flexibility. The system facilitated what needed to be done and at what stage.

During testing any ongoing design issues or iterations were created as new QA 'issues' and tasked via JIRA, utilising Atlasssian Confluence as the basis for the designs. This was enhanced by a screen-grabbing application in Confluence and worked well with the raising of or reopening of development tasks and issues.

This project was beneficial as it showed me the most suitable agile methodology and also the best tools to utilise to create an application that was as lean as possible and most efficient.

This then gave me the insight to move on to other startups.

As well as the browser application a mobile app was created for tasks such as inspections and maintenance and an email digest of reports such as maintenance, inspections and payments.

Some of the challenges faced was learning all the correct tools to complete the task, whether this was JIRA or ways to work more seamlessly with the developers so the project management was more problem free. It was a challenge to iron out all the functionality, which required thinking. This was done by brainstorming all the avenues and working closely with the product owner and stakeholders.

A challenge was not going down the UI road too soon, as there was many steps precluding this; then at the right point the design system could be scaled across. I learned quick workflow patterns to iterate out specific views to aid development, once the look and feel was established. I was able to build in flexibility which allowed for quick author-end changes by using symbols in Adobe illustrator that dynamically modified all global elements in the design file, upon a UI change. This reduced the time of visual development when changes occurred and so the design language of the application was flexible, responsive and didn't prove too cumbersome to control.