Under the Roof Stays
Under the Roof Stays, a subsidiary of Mumbai-based Under the Roof, is a tech-driven villa rental platform built on trust and transparency.
With a vision to be the world’s leading aggregator of curated, high-quality villas, it aims to deliver unique experiences through a fully automated platform that streamlines the entire customer journey from pre-sales to post-booking.
Objective:
Develop a scalable brand identity and design an intuitive web application informed by insights from the research phase.
Methods followed:
Secondary Research, Primary Research, Ideation, Wireframing, Design system, High-Fidelity Prototypes, Usability Testing.
My Contribution:
Primary & Secondary Research
Ideation
Wireframes & Prototype
UI-UX
Testing
Team:
Designer Manager
Web Developer
Interaction Designer
Timeline:
August 2024 - October 2024
Meet our users!
Meet Priya, a 32-year-old marketing manager from Mumbai who loves curated, hassle-free getaways. She values trust, transparency, and quality, seeking verified villas with clear pricing.
Frustrated by uncertain property quality, slow booking, hidden costs, and poor support, she wants a seamless platform that makes discovering and booking unique stays effortless and stress-free.
Lean UX Canvas:
Research Summary:
The current property booking platforms are cluttered with different kinds of filters and information, making navigation and property comparison hard. How might we simplify this process while offering personalized features?
Users:
Users from Tier 1 cities who prefer to rent properties for their vacations. It will include couples, families, or even large groups looking for a corporate or friendly retreat.
Business Outcomes:
Business outcomes include increased website traffic and villa bookings, leading to enhanced brand awareness and business expansion opportunities.
Hypothesis:
We believe that an increase in bookings is possible if the users get exclusive deals and offers through a curated and personalized booking experience.
Solution:
Comparative Feature: This feature allows the users to compare multiple properties of various organizations at a time ensuring they don’t need to open multiple tabs to compare shortlisted properties.
Trusted and vetted Properties: Showcase properties from partner organizations that have been pre-screened and succeeded in this industry to increase credibility.
Experimental Add-ons: Curated experiences to enhance stays such as guided tours, in-house chefs, wellness activities, etc.
User Outcomes & Benefits:
Why: Access to a curated selection of high-quality villas and experiences, along with a seamless and personalized booking process.
Benefit: Get exclusive deals on offers on bookings.
Behavior Change: Save money on bookings while experiencing exceptional service.
Key Insights from the Research
Experience and Differentiation
Travelers are shifting from generic listings to unique, curated stays. Positioning the brand as experience-first—with collections like luxury, family, or pet-friendly villas—creates stronger appeal than focusing on scale alone
Digital-First With Personalization
Modern travelers expect seamless, intuitive booking journeys. Leveraging AI-driven personalization and a clean digital interface ensures tailored recommendations that resonate with tech-savvy audiences
Brand Trust Through Support and Sustainability
Building credibility requires more than inventory. By offering exceptional customer support, transparent policies, and a focus on sustainable, bespoke villas, the brand can foster trust and long-term loyalty
Branding
A bold, type-based logo incorporating a creative play on the phrase "Under the Roof," with the word "the" positioned beneath the 'R's in the design.
The logo features a scalable system that allows for future growth and adaptability, supporting the expansion of the brand.
Information Architecture
We developed a well-structured information architecture for the product, organizing content and features in a logical, user-centered hierarchy.
This approach ensured that users could easily find information, understand relationships between different sections, and navigate the platform efficiently.
Prioritization Matrix
We created a prioritization matrix to evaluate features and tasks based on their impact and effort, allowing us to make informed decisions about what to focus on first.
This framework helped the team align on priorities, optimize resource allocation, and ensure that the most valuable elements of the product were developed and delivered efficiently.
Leveraging insights gathered from prior research and analysis, we crafted the product wireframes to translate user needs and business goals into tangible layouts.
We developed two versions of the wireframes—low-fidelity to quickly explore structure and flow, and mid-fidelity to refine details, interactions, and content placement—ensuring a clear and testable blueprint for the design and development phases.
Wireframes
Design System
Property Card Design Shortlisting
Product Screens
Next Steps:
01. Deploy MVP
The primary goal is to validate the product’s viability, gather real user feedback, and identify improvements early in the development process while improving the user flow.
02. A/B Testing
We plan to launch two versions of the MVP in a couple of Tier 1 cities to measure metrics like click-through rate, conversion rate, and engagement to see which performs better.