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RENTR App.

Notification and dashboard design for time-critical, trust-sensitive user journeys.

The Challenge.

RENTR operates in an environment where missed communication directly translates into wasted time, financial loss, and erosion of trust.

 

I was tasked with leading design across two critical problem spaces:

  1. Tenant cancellations: Ensuring users were reliably informed when viewings were cancelled, often at short notice, and guided toward compliant, low-friction next steps.

  2. Landlord payment oversight: Enabling landlords to identify, understand, and act on overdue rent without relying on customer support.

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Both problems shared core constraints:

  • High user stress and low tolerance for ambiguity,

  • Strong need for transparency,

  • A requirement to support self-service at scale.

Strategy & Design.

Rather than treating these as isolated UI problems, I framed them as end-to-end journeys, focusing on:

  • When and how users are informed,

  • What decisions they need to make next,

  • How the product takes responsibility when something goes wrong,

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I grounded decisions in existing research and personas, then translated those insights into clear system rules, notification logic, and information hierarchies that could scale.

Task One: Tenant Cancellation Notifications.

Designing for urgency, transparency, and trust.

The Scenario:

The Objective:

A tenant’s viewing is cancelled hours before it is due to take place. Failure to notify them reliably risks lost time, missed work, and immediate loss of trust in the platform.

  • Reaches users reliably under time pressure,

  • Clearly explains what happened and why,

  • Guides users toward the best compliant next step.

Notification System Design.

I designed a tiered notification strategy using behaviour-based triggers:

  • Recent app users received push notifications directing them back into the app,

  • Non-responsive users were escalated to SMS and email,

  • Users inactive in the app were contacted immediately via SMS/email.

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This approach prioritised delivery certainty over channel preference, a principle commonly used in payments and compliance-critical communication.

Impact:

  • Reduced the risk of users attending cancelled viewings,

  • Fewer inbound support queries related to missed cancellations,

  • Increased confidence that critical messages were received and acted on.

In-app Resolution Flows:

Once inside the app, the experience focused on:

  • Clear explanation of the cancellation reason,

  • Immediate presentation of next actions,

  • Language that acknowledged inconvenience and took platform-level ownership.

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Where possible, tenants were routed directly to:

  • Similar available properties,

  • Or a rescheduling flow with shared availability.

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A secondary transparency layer allowed users to view landlord notes, reinforcing accountability and reducing speculation.

Outcomes:

  • Faster recovery from failed bookings,

  • Higher likelihood of users continuing their search within the platform,

  • Reduced emotional drop-off during critical moments.

Task Two: Landlord Dashboard & Payments.

Designing for clarity, accountability, and self-service.

The Scenario:

Core Problems:

A landlord logs in and needs to understand whether any tenants are overdue on rent, and what actions are required.

Landlords needed to answer quickly:

  • Is there a problem?

  • Who is affected?

  • What should I do next?

Dashboard Strategy.

I focused on information hierarchy and escalation, principles common in financial dashboards:

  • Late payments surfaced through alerts and colour signalling,

  • Notifications timestamped for traceability,

  • Direct links from alerts to affected tenants.

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Navigation and layout were designed to support fast scanning and predictable access, reducing cognitive load for infrequent but high-importance tasks.

From Insight to Action:

From a single alert, landlords could:

  • Filter tenants by payment status,

  • View overdue balances,

  • Access full tenant context, including history and communication,

  • Initiate contact in one step.

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This reduced reliance on customer support and reinforced RENTR as a self-service, operationally efficient platform.

Outcomes:

  • Faster identification of overdue payments,

  • Reduced time-to-resolution for rent issues,

  • Lower support dependency for payment-related queries.

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