Doorvest - Investor Portal Design

RESEARCH

Discover

In the current experience, the portal shows various data points, projections, and a timeline of activity. Although the existing dashboard is informative, it is missing some parameters for the data displayed (i.e., Over what time period is the total rent collected?)

At this point, we didn't know for sure what the users’ primary goals were or whether the portal offered a clear way to achieve them.

Redlined screenshots of the current online portal experience

Qualitative Interviews

A user research plan was prepared to outline our goals before conducting user interviews with 3 current Doorvest customers.

The purpose of the qualitative interviews was to better understand the behaviors and motivations of current users by asking about their investing experiences.

We also aimed to identify their needs, goals, and challenges with respect to their Doorvest experience thus far.

Key insights would help inform the hierarchy and structure of information as we iterated on the current online portal experience.

Doorvest investor portal user research plan document

DEFINE

Insights

User interviews revealed key behavioral patterns and expectations.

The user is in their 20’s and 30’s, works full-time, and is a first-time single-family rental home investor. The user is someone who actively thinks about early retirement and values long-term financial security.

It became clear that as a long-term financial planner, the user needed to maintain a high-level perspective of their investment and a reliable way to check in on their account every 4-6 weeks.

Key insights were organized into three categories.

PLANNING

Doorvest investors are long-term financial planners.
They actively think about early retirement, cash flow, and maintaining control over the financial security of their future.

MANAGEMENT

On average, Doorvest investors check their financial accounts on a monthly basis.
Financial management on a mobile device is common, if not expected to be available and easy to use.

ACCESS

Users want access to information such as total investment value, monthly gains and losses (rent and fees), total revenue generated so far, and any documents and communications related to their investment property.

CONCEPTUALIZATION

Ideation

The qualitative interviews validated some characteristics assumed at the outset and helped us hone in on a couple of key features for the redesign.

Since the user must have some financial oversight, the area of opportunity would be to ensure that basic investment information (i.e., purchase price, photos) and updated financial information (i.e, monthly rent collected, fees due) are well-documented and easy to access.

By pursuing these two key features, we would show the user that their financial information is well-managed and readily available.

High-fidelity desktop and mobile mockups of the Properties page

The Solution

The proposed MVP builds upon the current experience by providing access to the most important past and present investment information.

The solution makes critical financial information clear and easy to access from one centralized platform, allowing the investor to stay informed and feel more in control of their financial future.

Doorvest investor portal desktop wireframes

PROTOTYPING

Mockups

After sharing wireframes with the client, we moved forward with high-fidelity mockups. It was important for the following key functions to be available and easy to achieve across desktop and mobile devices.

1. View financial data points:

At a glance, the Dashboard screen shows monthly data points to help inform the user about recent incoming and outgoing fees as well as overall portfolio value.
Data points include: gross monthly rent, net monthly rent, monthly expenses, past due, total rent collected, and total portfolio value.

High-fidelity mobile mockups of financial data points shown

2. View properties:

The Properties tab is where users can find all of their investment information in one place.
Users can easily look up specific details such as purchase date as well as track more dynamic information such as monthly income and financial growth.

High-fidelity desktop and mobile mockups of the online portal experience

CONCLUSION

Reflection

User research can be small, but mighty. Due to time constraints, we were only able to interview three users. While the sample was small, their feedback was incredibly valuable and helped us validate assumptions as well as shed light on unforeseen pain points for future exploration.

Conduct usability testing. Feedback from current users would help validate the accuracy of the design solutions. If given more time, user testing would help gauge the value of the solution and identify areas of opportunity before diving into development.