By estimate, Lagos now has a population of 23 million. At least, about 86 persons migrate into the state every hour. Searching for a house could be challenging and frustrating, with agents trying to exploit you and most times not meeting expectations. Getting a clean, safe and affordable apartment in a cool location in Lagos, especially on the mainland, is a serious struggle. And in your search for an apartment, you'll probably meet a crazy agent, who'll introduce you to a difficult landlord and his poorly maintained house.

You'll meet the agent who has the contacts of all Lagos landlords, Having a contact network is a good selling point for apartment agents, but Lagos agents always overrate themselves. An agent assure you that you'll get the apartment you want in no time because he knows the number of houses in Yaba and Surulere. Another will say he has the contacts of all the landlords in Lagos just to make you think he knows his onions.

Agent fee first Lagos agent don't joke with money. In fact, after telling them the kind of house you want, the next thing is for you to pay N2000 or N5000, depending on the agent. They call it agent fee. Then you fill a form. This same agent will ask for something they call mobilization fee. This is meant to aid their transportation from one place to another to search for vacant apartments.

Here comes your first disappointment The moment the agent tells you he has gotten your choice apartment, don't jubilate yet, just go and see it first. Most times, this turns out to be a direct opposite of what you want. You want a clean apartment in a cool location, but the first house your agent will show you will most likely be one with water problem in an overcrowded area.

Since you don't like the first one, the search continues. If you really want to get a good house in Lagos, you must be ready to do some legwork with the agent. Some agents are ready to work the length and breadth of the city to get you an apartment. Forget the claim that he knows all landlords and vacant apartments in Lagos. You are in it together, and you have to pay the transportation fair to anywhere he takes you.

The goal of my research was to better understand user needs and frustrations with existing solutions in order to identify opportunities for the business based on existing products and to aid the development of new products. Two methods of research I used are Ethnographic research and Quantitative research methods.

During the define phase, I sorted out the user requirements and the initial ideas to create the personas

An empathy map allows us sum up our learning from engagement with people. The map provides 4 major areas in which to focus our attention on, thus providing an overview of a person's experience.

During the ideation phase, i used 2 methods in order to find more elegant and satisfying solutions to problems that effect the user experience of a product.

James is a Business Analyst in a reputable Bank in Nigeria, his work ethic is commendable and has been promoted a couple of times. He recently got married to the love of his life and wants to start a family but the current apartment is too small for him.

James checked on property listing websites and found a few agents on there but the registration fees and inspection fee ( on every inspection ) is discouraging. Due to his busy schedule James has a hard time meeting up with inspections and sometimes have to skip work just to inspect these apartments and at the end he is always disappointed on the type of houses the agents provide.

A friend referred him to an app that allows him find apartments, boycotting agents and their ridiculous charges and also allows him to Inspect apartment In 3D giving him a better experience and a feeling that he is physically present.

James is wowed and wonders why he hasn't heard of this awesome app. He quickly downloads the app and finds an apartment and immediately inspects it and it was everything he wished for. in minutes he finds an apartment that he likes and set a date to inspect with the House owner and pay the rent. All theses with no charges and at his convenient. James is happy and feels his search has finally come to an end.

During the design phase i sketched my ideas on a piece of paper, then created low fidelity wireframes, carried out testing on the wireframes, implemented changes and converted to high fidelity designs.

Usability testing is a technique i used to evaluate a product by testing it on potential customers, we set out metrics we wanted to achieve or measure our achievement by which were, HEART. We conduct testing sessions on 6 users and here is a summary of our findings and observations

• Not too complex registration process
• Easy to find homes as most of them searched rather than finding homes on the home page
• Users were Amazed by the 3D Tours as it was way different to what they were used to.
• Users liked the scheduling function with the landlord or house agent.
• Users found it difficult to use the scale on the pricing page.

In the end, I reflected on how the project went and like every other project, there were a lot of good and bad parts. My goal here was to pick up some lessons that would help me in future projects. So what were my biggest challenges?