London Office Xchange

BRIEF - UIUX Design

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London Office Xchange is a platform connecting businesses and individuals with desirable office spaces in London. With the growing popularity of short-term office rental markets like WeWork, renting office space in major cities has become more accessible and exciting. Our company partners with various office suppliers in London, offering an extensive database of office spaces that users can search and filter based on their specific needs. Whether you're looking for affordable office space or a premium location, London Office Xchange has you covered.

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Research

The research process for LOX was unique as the company operated as a broker without an online presence. The company had a large database of potential leads, which were collected on Excel files containing extensive information about users' requirements and needs. Through thorough analysis of this data, personas were created to guide the development of low-fidelity mockups, which demonstrated the user journey to stakeholders, management, and the broker team. The research served as a valuable tool to showcase how information could be utilized within the user interface.

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Wireframes

Low Fidelity Sketches

During meetings with the Co-Founders, I created sketches to showcase a general layout and design idea. As I wanted to implement strong visuals, particularly images, I kept the initial sketches simple and focused on the readiness for heavy image use. This approach helped to communicate the direction of the design and allowed for feedback and collaboration with the Co-Founders.

Branding & Style Guidelines

Branding

London Office Xchange required a unique and strong brand that could be truncated to create an abstract yet memorable name. LOX was decided as the brand as it conveys professionalism and a consistent message. The colours of the brand bring elements of trust, integrity and knowledge through to the company.

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Style Guide

The London Office Xchange logo, which features cut-off text, has served as the inspiration for the website's color scheme. This scheme will be used sparingly to ensure an uncluttered user interface.

The website will have a professional, clear, neutral, and straightforward look to appeal to a broad range of users. To achieve this, I developed a comprehensive style guide to convey the business's ethos and ensure design consistency across all digital and print platforms. A preview of the style guide is shown here.

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High Fidelity Mock-ups

The development of the high fidelity mock-ups for the London Office Xchange platform was a collaborative effort involving stakeholders, management, and brokers. This iterative process was crucial in achieving the final design, as active participation and feedback from all parties were necessary. I worked closely with the team, incorporating their ideas and suggestions to ensure that the final designs met their requirements.

To proceed with the development, I collaborated with developers to create design specifications and systems that allowed them to build a beta version of the platform. This enabled me to conduct testing and validation with a group of potential users, ensuring that the final product met their needs and expectations. Throughout the process, I remained committed to achieving the best possible outcome for the London Office Xchange platform, and worked diligently to achieve this goal.

Conclusion

As expected, having complete ownership and creating a complex platform like London Office Xchange did come with some issues. I did encounter some problems in the design of this platform, some of which included search functionality, such as searching via underground or train stations as well as showcasing the relevant images as per the office space. I manage to solve these issues by adding relevant search fields as well as requesting the office companies to upload images directly to the bespoke content management system. One of the biggest challenges came with interpreting the business and bringing it into the 21st century. Management required more understanding in the UXUI process, the idea of iteration was a little time consuming initially, but once management realised the reasons behind constant iteration and validation, they quickly became on board. Communication in this project was key, and aligning expectations with different groups within the business was paramount in getting the product and project over the line.