University Living helps international students find trusted accommodations near global universities. But by early 2024, the mobile app was struggling: 

Most students used Guest Login, which blocked data capture and resulted in lost leads. The forms felt intrusive, CTAs were inconsistent, and users lacked a clear reason to trust or act.

“We didn’t just improve usability—we rebuilt trust, intent, and speed into the heart of the app experience.”

Despite strong app installs, University Living struggled to convert. Users often dropped off without ever becoming leads. From splash screen confusion to repetitive CTAs and delayed responses, every part of the app was slowing down trust and bookings.

Students were bouncing before trust could be built. Information was scattered, CTAs were unclear, and every action felt like starting over. The app needed to feel like a helpful guide—not a dead end.

This wasn’t just a UI facelift. It was a strategic redesign aimed at solving real business pain points and user frustrations—across trust, speed, and conversions. The team came together across product, sales, and engineering to align on what success should look like.

We needed to rebuild trust early in the user journey and turn casual app launches into real leads. By repositioning the onboarding, simplifying login, and bringing key actions up front—we focused on two things:

To do this, we redesigned the entire lead creation flow and introduced smart signup logic to remove friction while still capturing critical contact data.

On the sales side, lead response was painfully slow—manual exports, missed follow-ups, and no prioritization system. We fixed that by building an internal sales roster: as soon as a lead enters the app, they are categorized into Qualified, Lost, or Disqualified, and instantly routed to the sales team with enriched user data.

This gave sales clarity and speed—allowing them to reach out within minutes, not days.

On the design front, we didn’t just redesign screens—we laid the groundwork for a scalable component library and brand system. Buttons, cards, forms, and color tokens were standardized for consistency and reusability.

Our users—especially students—wanted less hassle. They didn’t want to fill the same form three times or wait on confusing splash screens. They wanted to:

To meet these goals, we introduced Google/Apple login, prefilled smart forms, and a redesigned property card that brought key CTAs ("Enquire Now", "Join Waitlist") right up front.

We made the app feel lighter, faster, and more relevant—so students could research with confidence, not confusion.

<b>This wasn’t a redesign for aesthetics—it was a redesign for outcomes</b>.

We defined three core user archetypes, each mapped to a key "job to be done." This helped us align product flows and value propositions with what users actually needed — not what we assumed they wanted.

Reimagining a broken flow through design sprints, competitor mapping, and rapid prototyping.

After synthesizing research and drop-off data, we ran a 5-day design sprint with product, sales, and engineering. The goal:
🔍 Uncover what was breaking trust and flow
🧠 Prototype multiple approaches
🎯 Validate the best experience that builds confidence and drives action

We narrowed in on three design priorities to solve the core friction:

We studied other student accommodation apps like Amber, Uniplaces, and Casita. Patterns we noted:

These inspired us to rebuild the core navigation, not just the UI.

We didn’t ship a full design system — but we built the foundation.
When we started the redesign, there was no structure: every screen was custom-built, styles varied by platform, and devs recreated everything from scratch.

As part of the onboarding revamp, we introduced a brand-aligned component library and visual guidelines — the first step toward a scalable design system.

🚫 Cards, buttons, forms — all inconsistent


🚫 Dev handoff required manual specs every time

Visual prompt (Before):
→ Screens showing spacing inconsistency, form style variations, UI mismatches between platforms

✅ Established brand colors, typography, and spacing rules
✅ Created core UI components:

We didn’t just clean things up — we laid the groundwork for consistent, scalable UX as we continue revamping the app.

Visual prompt (After):
→ Figma file with core components
→ Token sheet for colors/spacing
→ Mobile screen showing consistent UI use

Turning drop-offs into signups, confusion into clarity, and friction into flow—here’s how we did it.

🛠 Note: This wasn’t a single design sprint. These UX improvements were rolled out in phases over several weeks—coordinated across design, development, and sales—to ensure smooth adoption and measurable results.

We introduced smart login via Google and Apple, auto-capturing name and email. This replaced guest logins and removed the need for OTP across regions.

Impact
✔️ Reduced lead loss due to form fatigue
✔️ Enabled instant lead capture at signup

📸 Visual Hint
Side-by-side login screen comparison:

We added animation and progressive disclosure to guide users and create trust early in the journey.

Impact
✔️ Reduced bounce from splash screen
✔️ Helped users understand the app value before login

📸 Visual Hint
Before/after of onboarding flow with motion &amp; scroll interaction

All major CTAs like “Enquire Now” and “Join Waitlist” were unified into a smart, prefilled enquiry overlay—no more repeated forms.

Impact
✔️ Cut down time-to-contact
✔️ Boosted form completion rate by simplifying actions

📸 Visual Hint
Overlay form showing prefilled fields and contextual CTA on property page

✅ Fix #4: Cleaner, Clickable Property Cards

We redesigned the property listing cards with upfront CTAs, better spacing, and key highlights (e.g., distance to university, availability).

Impact
✔️ Reduced reliance on navigating to property detail page
✔️ Gave users more control while browsing

📸 Visual Hint
Before/after mockups of listing cards highlighting CTA visibility and clarity

We added a contextual “Talk to an Expert” module throughout the app—making support feel integrated, not intrusive.

Impact
✔️ Increased trust for first-time users and parents
✔️ Led to more high-intent conversations

By removing friction and building early trust, we turned a high-drop-off journey into a 20.9% lead engine, increased contact creation by 279%, and helped close 53 bookings in just one month..

Hey! I'm Shreshth Gupta, a Product Designer