Электронный Дом

01 Context and problem

Ratings were dropping, and nobody had a clear list of fixes

A neighbouring team ran research and came back with bad news: the app gets negative ratings, users get confused and annoyed. But “it’s bad” isn’t a task yet. We needed to know what exactly was bad, why, and what to tackle first.

So the job wasn’t “repaint the buttons”. It was a UX audit: walk through the key screens, find where the logic breaks and where people get lost, and deliver prioritised recommendations, urgent and long-term, plus ideas for what to improve and add.

02 Role and contribution

What I did and what I relied on

My contribution

a
Audit against standards: went through the key screens and checked interaction logic, accessibility, readability and contrast against usability heuristics, not personal taste.
b
Problem map: collected the places where users get lost and sorted them by screen: home, “My Home”, neighbours, chats, error handling, services.
c
Prioritisation: tagged findings as urgent or long-term, so the team knew what to grab first and what to plan for later.
d
Key screen redesign: rebuilt the most painful ones (home, “My Home”, chats and error handling) and wrote up the rest as recommendations.

Working with the team

a
Research team: brought the data on the negativity, ratings and user complaints. The audit started from real feedback, not my guesses.
b
Product team: together we decided which findings were critical for the product and what was realistic for the next iterations.
c
Feasibility: kept the recommendations within the existing app. Not “rewrite everything from scratch”, but targeted fixes that can actually ship.

03 Findings and solutions

What I found on each screen, and what I did about it

3.1A home screen that answers “why am I here”

What I found: The home screen had so much going on that the app’s purpose got lost. Among the banners and feeds, the thing people came for simply disappeared.
What I did: Cleared out the off-target stuff and brought forward what residents need most often: payments, service requests, meter readings, notifications. The screen now answers “why am I here” instead of “what else can we show them”.
Effect: From the first screen it’s clear what to do, with no wading through partner ads.

3.2A “My Home” that tells you what’s up with your address

What I found: The “My Home” section looked half-empty while the important stuff got lost: the notification that your property ownership request was rejected was almost impossible to find. The neighbours’ profiles next to it were empty and uninformative too.
What I did: Added the resident’s status to the address cards, brought forward what people actually use (payments, requests, votes, owners’ general meetings) and made the rejection notice visible.
Effect: The section became useful: you can see what’s going on with your address instead of guessing why “nothing is happening”.

3.3Chats where you know who you’re writing to

What I found: The chats mixed four kinds of conversation: building, private, concierge, support. Users didn’t know where to write, and the “Ask the concierge” button was misleading: people expected it to do something other than what it did.
What I did: Split the chat types into clear groups and renamed them so each name honestly says what’s behind it. Fewer “wait, where did I just end up” moments.
Effect: At a glance, you know which chat you’re in and who will answer.

3.4Errors in human language

What I found: Errors appeared in a modal with a cryptic code. People didn’t understand the cause or what to do next, so they went and wrote a bad review. This was one of the main sources of low ratings.
What I did: Rewrote the errors in plain language: what happened, why, and what to do right now, instead of a code that only means something to a developer.
Effect: An error stopped being a dead end and a reason to knock a star off the app in the store.

3.5Prioritisation: fix “why it’s annoying” first

Urgent: whatever hurts ratings every day. Clear errors, a readable home screen, a visible rejection notice.
Long-term: things that make life better but take time. Onboarding, request drafts, iOS-style navigation, richer profiles and services section.
One principle: first fix “why it’s annoying”, then add “why people love it”.

EffectThe audit ended not with a list of complaints but with a roadmap: the team knows what goes into the next sprint and what to plan.

04 Prioritisation

How I decided what to fix first

There were plenty of findings, from “minor but irritating” to “this is why people delete the app”. You can’t fix everything at once, so I weighed each one on two axes: how hard it hits the user and how much it costs to ship.

1
Errors with cryptic codes are the top source of negativity, and the fix is cheap: rewrite the copy. Urgent
2
An overloaded home screen and a buried rejection notice hit every single visit, and the fixes are targeted. Urgent
3
Onboarding, request drafts, iOS-style navigation, richer profiles and services: a noticeable improvement, but they need time and development. Long term

The logic is simple: first remove whatever makes people leave one star and an angry review. It’s cheap and wins back trust. Then work on what makes the app pleasant, not just bearable. That gave the team a clear order of work instead of a list of twenty “we really should”s.

05 Outcome

The result: a prioritised map of fixes

6 screens Covered in the audit Home, “My Home”, neighbours, chats, errors, services.

4 screens Rebuilt from scratch The most painful ones went first.

2 horizons Fix priorities Urgent and long-term, kept separate.

4 ideas Planned for later Onboarding, drafts, iOS navigation, clearer content.

+
What I found: navigation and clarity problems across six screens, from an overloaded home screen to modals with codes instead of words.
+
What’s next: I handed the prioritised roadmap to the team, so it’s clear what goes into the next sprint and what to plan for later.

This is an audit with a roadmap of fixes, not a measured production impact: I don’t have post-launch numbers. The figures above describe the scope of the work, not a change in store ratings.

06 What I planned for next

Long-term fixes, already mapped out

Onboarding

Replayable walkthrough

A first-launch flow you can replay, so a new resident understands what the app can do instead of tapping around at random.

Drafts

Requests and listings

Saving drafts of requests and listings, so anything abandoned halfway doesn’t have to be typed again.

Navigation and copy

iOS guidelines and hints

Navigation built on familiar iOS patterns, plus placeholders and hints on empty screens: fewer “so what do I do here” moments.

I found out why residents hate their housing app — and rebuilt the key screens