First working iteration of the app

 

 

 

Notes from latest round of user testing

- Text could be a little bit bigger 

- maybe make more things clickable? 

- need a back button on the room home pages to get back to the overview of the house

- make it more obvious that the graphs are measuring the climate in the house 

- text on graph + menu bigger probably 

Work over the break + Week 7

The work I did over the break + week 7.

Advising with Tristam

• Process work is important - if you have a lot of process work, as long as you tell a story with your product, concept or whatever it will be the way to communicate your journey through the semester. 
• The depth of the product also. 
• They do want to hear about the journey but in a condensed way... all parts. A story. 
• My description of the product + visual aids

-- watch the story of a plastic spoon by Greenpeace

Create user journeys related to the situation

Things I need to do continuing on:

• Start the 1500 word report that is due along with our final output
• Plan out precisely my output schedule for the next 6 weeks 
• Need a website probably that would reach out to both tenants and landlords 

Week 7 Schedule here:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10JYZW3klC8eKT44LbJCG5eS6C217a-1p8tJ2M57KV0M/edit#gid=0

Transmedia Touchpoints + Appearance of inSite

So as part of my "transmedia" campaign, I would probably have to make a website for inSite... the hardcore version of that would be actually make a working one that people could look at, the less hardcore version would be just mocking one up and putting it on InVision.

Transmedia touchpoints

website

the app

physical box thing that actually measured shit in your house

even some ads?  

Website

My website would only have to be pretty basic, essentially explaining the benefits and features of inSite to the viewer and encouraging them to buy it... it could look something like this in fact.

Screen interface and appearance of the house insert

I've been looking at some precedents to explore how my actual thing would look, like on the wall, and that would be cool if I could have an example of it in my final presentation. (precedents: Nest home automation, fitness apps, weather apps). 

Data Visualisation

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-makes-a-good-data-visualization/

Marketing

Depending on the government at the time, I would propose that this could be a subsidised program rolled out along with new regulations around renting, to encourage landlords to get ahead of the new regulations and take care of their house in the best way. 

The pull would be that it was data-regulated for optimum preservation of the landlord's asset and that it would be better than traditional property managers.  

"A switched-on property manager. Literally." 

"Anticipate issues before they have a chance to arise..." 

"Property managers aren't regulated. inSite is."   

Supercrit notes from week 6 + the 10/5 Post Supercrit Report

#Supercrit Report - 10/5

1) I found the lecturer critique useful

2)   I intend to make a prototype of the app for both tenant and landlords’ usage, and plot out the scope of my project for the now vs future vs far future representations of my project and what final outputs might happen for each of these.  

3)  There was actually less peer critiquing than happened at the previous supercrit. The quality of projects were quite wide ranging from what I saw. I got to make some cool earrings at Hannah’s booth which was my favourite thing about the supercrit.

Supercrit Notes

 

• How to manage the property better
• Collaborative experience for tenant and landlord
• How as a tenant and landlord you can do the best thing for each other 
• Government subsidised product. 
• E.g. "using this product will make your tenants more likely to take care of your house in future."
• Go crazy with this... lasers etc (make it very flashy and futuristic)
• IOT (the internet of things)  
• Nest Labs...
• Council "stickers" not safe for habitation or indicative of how safe it is? Like a ratings thing but maybe in a digital format 
• Smart buildings and smart houses
• Monthly report to the landlord...
• Don't fall into the black hole of privacy issues, within a landlord-tenant context
• What would the project look like if you are doing it now, tomorrow, and in the future? 
• How big is my scope? 

Workshops + Poster

We did 2 workshops in week 4

DIDACTIC POSTER

For the supercrit in week 6, they suggested that we have a didactic poster ready as well as maybe some motion graphics, and any props or user experience tools that we need. 

I am planning to have a couple of posters with the crux of my idea and how it is going to work explained, and it would be cool to have a simple motion graphic, along with maybe some realtime wireframes and a small cardboard mock-up for the lecturers to get into the experience. 

What would my final output be?

So right now I have two paths that I could go down.

The first path - in a tenancy context, a government-subsidised system that monitored a house's performance with things like temperature, humidity and airflow in different areas of the house and then identified issues as they arose. This would be a cost effective and data driven way to see actually how much money was being gained and lost in certain situations...especially those with cumulative damage or that which could get worse as time went on, i.e. if the system saw that your washing machine was about to break down, and could prevent you having to spend more money than if you discovered the problem later.

As pointed out by my architect flatmate, this is not a very energy efficient or long term solution but it does work within the current context of renting and shitty New Zealand houses with a myriad of small issues that seem expensive to fix in a large one-shot job, which landlords are already very reluctant to do more than the bare minimum as it is hard to see long term benefits when we are living in the present.

If we were to look even more speculatively at the problem, another more efficient and better long term solution (and slightly different business plan) would be that the system would be installed for one month, to monitor a house's performance in that month (perhaps the worst month of winter or something, to allow for a wide range of weather conditions)...

Artificial Intelligence in the Home

Problem: In a tenant-landlord relationship, it is the landlord's responsibility to maintain their property and to fix broken things. It is also the tenant's responsibility to advise their landlord of any issues. However, many tenants are scared to do so, due to fear of backlash from mentioning a problem, or being seen as a bad tenant and somehow being the cause of a broken thing, even if it had nothing to do with them. Many times this results in unhappy tenants and landlords being unaware of the extent of a problem. Most landlords in HRV's State of the Home Survey believe they're good to their tenants and respond quickly to their concerns, but most renters hold the completely opposite view.

From the landlords point of view: "Well if my tenants can't tell me about what's wrong with it, then I can't fix stuff?" 
From the tenants point of view: "I don't want to tell my landlord about the mould because what if they get mad at me and imply that it's my fault? There's nothing stopping them from assuming that." 

Property managers are not a good solution to this problem either, as they are completely unregulated, and you have no guarantee that they will do a good job or even benefit you at all.

"The snag is the Authority has limited power to act. It can only make a finding of "unsatisfactory conduct" against a licensee for "real estate agency work", which doesn't include property management. It may take action if a licensee is guilty of "misconduct". But the bar for misconduct is high and most complaints don't meet it.

A case in point: an owner alleged the property manager had failed to prevent a tenant running a tattoo parlour in a flat and failed to follow-up rent owed by another tenant in the same building. The police eventually contacted the owner about the tattoo parlour after complaints from other residents. But the evidence didn't meet the threshold for misconduct and the case was dismissed." - Consumer NZ 

Solution: What if the house could tell the landlord what is wrong with it as a knowledgeable and unbiased artificial intelligence, and the tenants had less responsibility in that area? This data tracking would also come in handy in  

AI in Houses: Research + Precedents

https://www.forbes.com/sites/freddiedawson/2016/05/24/the-house-that-learns-bringing-artificial-intelligence-into-the-home/#314b4ab63fa3

A new London startup wants to make controlling a smart-home more natural and intuitive. It plans to do this through the introduction of he addition of ‘teachable’ programming and visual input methods to instruct a home-hub. Current models rely on voice or the use of apps for input of instructions. But AI Build’s prototype will be the first to include a range of cameras as well.

• Privacy issues with cameras in my particular setting (tenants rights)? But also benefits... due to more information
• Temperature tracking is useful because then the landlord and the tenant can track their behaviour 
• Automatically tracks the data for you, and then you would press a button to send that data to your landlord... or would it be sent automatically? Like weekly or monthly reports? Whatever is most effective 

User Journey 2

Commonly, renting comes with problems and ambiguity as to what things are who's responsibility, with tenants and landlords being confused sometimes.

1. The Artificial Intelligence house is always monitoring things like temperature, humidity, and airflow in the house, and is connected to things like the washing machine, dishwasher, fridge, etc etc to monitor these also.

2. This data will be helpful in predicting problems before they arise, such as defining areas of the house that are damper than others or colder than others, which could contribute to mould etc etc, or monitoring how often a washing machine or dishwasher is used, which would be used to aid maintenance checks and stuff.

3. If a certain area was coming close to being a problem, or a device was close to needing maintenance or on the verge of being a problem, the data collected by the AI house would come in handy for determining the cause of an issue, whether it was going to happen anyway or whether the tenant had done anything to exacerbate the issue or not.

4. The process might go like - constant data collection on temperature, humidity levels, airflow, etc etc, and then recommendations would be given to the tenant as to when to turn on the heating or when to have windows open and stuff, for optimum preservation of the property and even the tenant's health. And the data would tell when the tenant would listen to the AI's recommendations for their behaviour and tell them the benefits and stuff. This might be confidential at first or if the tenant wanted to share their data with the landlord they could. 

5. If something was close to being a problem and the AI had determined it was an issue with the house and not the tenants behaviour in the house, it could be sent by the tenant to the landlord with statistics for exactly what happened etc etc, then they would be much more prepared for any eventuality. 

-- System to monitor the houses performance... cheaper and easier to monitor things as they come up rather than fix the problem 

-- Appliances being quite difficult... setting up a system for temperature and ventilation is very easy, formulas, easy 

-- Heating... the legal requirements of heating like connected to a government thing that controlled it or something 

-- Not energy conscious, put the system in for a month - baseline reading of how the house performance, and then after that you impose design solutions and simulate that to quantify the benefits that you would get from the design solutions. 

-- if it was government subsidised thing to help landlords stick to the laws in the path of least resistance, the easiest way possible... if you could actually see the benefits. 

-- if you put in too much insulation and not enough ventilation, it creates another problem coz you need both 

More Interesting Ideas

HOUSE HISTORY

How do landlords usually find out about the history of their house? 

- Trade Me property information

- previous auction listings for a house 

Purely informational, not feeling based or any of that other shit 

-if you're always going to be living in a house that's not yours, what things can improve your control and outlook in this situation? If you have a good landlord its fine if you don't what happens? Research suggests that knowing things makes people feel more in control, if they have lots of knowledge   

For landlords the benefits could be emotional and tangible... for tenants perhaps it would just be tangible like maybe they won't be as surprised if something bad happens to their house if they knew in advance. I as a tenant can't generally have any attachment to the place that I live in except for a surface level thing, like the way that we arrange our stuff will be the sense of home rather than the building itself. We don't own it and we might never own it.

Home is the objects that you carry with you from one place to the other? 

• The history of your house could give insight into potential areas of cost for repairs and stuff, how old it is, etc 
• Something where you can easily find the history of your house? A nicely laid out version
• An AI in a house that tells you things and  

Going Back To The Problem

Last week's critique was that I go back to the problem, and look at some new avenues to explore the problem from. So I have actually multiple problems, that lead down multiple avenues. The problems are more and less specific... the area I started examining was how tenants interact with their landlords, specifically that they were scared/hesitant to contact the landlord RE. maintenance of the property, through fears that it would be seen as the tenant's fault and they would be charged monetarily, for fears that it would make the landlord angry (even through no fault of tenant), things like that, due to the power balance between the two groups.

• How people interact with each other
• How people interact with the space
• How tenants interact with landlords and vice versa

And how they don't see eye to eye... this was a really good study -

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/08/tenants-landlords-don-t-see-eye-to-eye-survey.html

that said stuff like,

• 75% of landlords believe that they fix problems within a property as soon as possible, 
• 66% of tenants claim the complete opposite (that problems are not fixed within a timely manner at all)

Graph A. Landlord perception               Graph B. Tenant perception of 

of problem fixing                                    problem fixing

Which was really interesting to me, as it really said that problems for landlords were really just out of sight out of mind, if they can't see in front of them/aren't aware of a problem why should they or would they care? Landlords perceive their relationship with tenants to be good 90% of the time (no statistics for how tenants perceive their relationship with landlord, but it is plausible that the more powerful party will be having a better time and perception of the relationship generally).
And so I looked at how to make the problems more obvious and in-your-face to the landlord. They don't live there, so they don't see necessarily the benefit of resolving issues in a timely manner.

• What if Virtual Reality could make the problems of a house more obvious to its owner that was not living there? Like really in your face... 
• What if there was some kind of device in the house that monitored problems and sent alerts to the landlord with the longer they wait the more the consequences are really obvious? 
• Like the VR progression of really exaggerated mould or whatever, to make the landlord do something
• What if the owner of the house valued their house like a person? What if the house had a personality and talked to its owner? 
• What if there was a more obvious representation of problems and their time, money, etc, that can be lost when they don't take care of the property properly and do a shit job of repairing stuff? 

1. Make it easier and more inviting for tenants to complain and

2. Make the problems more visual and obvious for landlords to see, like how bad it will be 

This combination of features would hopefully result in an increase of tenants letting their landlords know about issues more, and the landlords fixing issues in a timely manner due to the increased visibility they would have of the problem.  

Feedback Week 3

Version 2 of my wireframe from last week. I presented to Tristam this week and this was my feedback...

What does each target market want and need? 

Think about the legal aspects and stuff

• blow it up, go beyond the boring
• practicalities surrounding each users needs
• user testing 

Don’t remove myself from the situation. Go wider than I am currently and focus more on the problem than the solution, the problem will lead me to a solution 

Week 2 - VCD Research/Studio Project Responsive Studio

Feedback from the showing at Week 2. I presented my wireframe, which would dictate the mechanics and features of my website/app/service. Got a lot of good feedback: 

• Aimed at families vs flatters - different needs, whether one account would be for a whole flat or every person has their own account? Because flatting can change rapidly from year to year probably each person has their own account 
• If the target audience (Maori and Pasifika) works, that's cool but if not the idea can stand on its own. Not just for them, everyone can use it but make it extra welcoming to them. 
• Communication is the most important feature of this programme, a relationship between the landlord and tenant, over and above the database
• Shared experience, with the mediating 3rd party. How would it look from the landlord's perspective? 
• Does your target audience (Maori + Pasifika) have access to this platform?
• Could you manage and sign contracts over this platform too? With annotations and things... again encouraging dialogue between landlord and tenant  

Adding more drawings and stuff to my Methodology, like this --

Another theory that I could add is that of Observational Research...

Looking at well laid-out websites again

I really have to have a point of difference from what the tribunal website already does... have to structure my content in a funner way and with more emphasis on certain things. Looking at visual styles and whatnot now also. Colour palettes, fonts, etc etc.

Lets be honest here - this design is totally just a carbon copy of some of what the tribunal website is already doing... the green? Way too similar! It's good to get it out of my head though.
I do like the idea of a scrolldown journey though... With a fixed hovering navbar for easy navigation through the large amount of content. And I think the style of TT illustrations (little vector graphics) is also quite good, could use sort of the same ish style for this?

Features again - Hammering out the structure

So the website would be divided into 2 sections - how to avoid the tribunal, and then, how to win it.

Automation and automatic process make it easier for people to proceed feeling more knowledgeable and confident when a distressing event is taking place. 

Being Prepared AF

Good visual metaphors. Like, being on the ocean? Climbing a mountain? Gamifying the process slightly... making it more engaging, a narrative people can relate to. A task that seems difficult but then is easy when you have the right gear and preparation, that's what I want to get across to people. It's like your life jacket here, your secret food stash. We all have an earthquake kit right, just in case? Well, this is like that. It probably won't happen, but if it does you can bet you will be the most prepared and the most likely to win your case against a shitty landlord.  "Getting your ducks in a row etc etc"

"Preparing for Tribunal actually starts when you begin the tenancy."

WHEN YOU MOVE IN.

• A database for all photos of prior damage and stuff, all pictures of the existing condition of things. Explain why: So landlord can't sneakily take it out of your bond at the end of the tenancy, which happens a lot. 
• KEEP EVERYTHING ON FILE, especially the contract that you signed, the amounts of money that you are paying each week, etc etc. One easy place. (Secure...)

DURING TENANCY. 

• "Common mistakes tenants make in the path before a dispute..." "Tricks for young players" - e.g. If a landlord is being slack and not fixing something that needs to be fixed, DON'T stop paying your rent. 
• When contacting the landlord for a repair, keep it civil and polite - here's some pre written emails you can use and tailor to send to the landlord asking for a repair, this way it is a pre set process and you are less likely to anger the beast etc etc. 

WHEN A PROBLEM ARISES

• Getting prepared from then on, this is when you bring out your earthquake kit, or lifeboat or whatever the fuck. 
• Bla bla bla, getting prepared 
• Don't hesitate to contact the Citizens advice bureau or the Tenancy 0800 number for help before you take action - it's always great to get outside input from people who know this stuff inside and out. 
• Link to Tenant Advocates Chat... free govt service for vulnerable tenants, they can sometimes help you before you have to go to tribunal... 

How to Win at Tribunal

Illustrated user journey with one of the users... important stuff to remember before + during the courtroom, that they might not tell you. 

After Tribunal

• Other Useful Stuff
• After your case has had a ruling made on it, check out the "tenants database" - this is a register of information that landlords can access about YOU and potentially discriminate against you.  Make sure you request the information it holds about you...
• If you feel like it, you could add the landlord to this information database about bad/shitty landlords - this helps others like you in the future to see nasty landlords and potentially avoid them. 
• A little review form, maybe to make it more legal, a proof of ID? Proof of address. 

#SUPERCRIT

Feedback from Supercrit

• Really get the precedents in order and what they need

presentation of a complex idea

1. context

2. big idea

3. audience description. situation of audience. personae

3a. research. users (testing), history & precedents. where necessary

4. experience plan (flow charts, storyboards: narratives)

4a. experience prototypes (incorporating evidence or feedback where necessary)

5. outputs - include experience prototype where people can perform as necessary

6. reflection. how does your output relate to your research? how does it relate to your intent? to the needs/desire/understanding of your audience?

7. conclusion. desire. projection of concept into future: personal and/or community. hypothesis 

SWOT analysis of the Tenancy Tribunal website and the TPA website (Christchurch)

TT Website

Strengths:  Beautiful and clean visual style - professional and simple design. Cute and appropriate little illustrations. MOSTLY simple enough to navigate, (barring the huge amount of information actually on there). Some use of different visual navigation systems to attempt to break up the massive amount of text.

Weaknesses: Quite text heavy. A very cold and dry tone, not engaging for the reader. Emotionless. Content is not tailored to tenants only- too neutral. Which could turn tenants off the website and discourage them pursuing the TT process if they needed to. Needs much more detailing and more information about what actually happens and what CAN happen in the Tenancy Tribunal process to ensure that tenants are prepared for anything that could happen.
A subsection of the Tenancy Services website, not its own special site to completely serve and speak to the tenancy tribunal experience. For our purposes, too much emphasis on what happens before the Tenancy Tribunal step.

Opportunities: A more user friendly tone - doesn't have to be unprofessional or silly, but just a bit more reassuring to encourage first time users and those embroiled in the gruelling and stressful tenancy tribunal process.  A separate website or subsection dedicated to getting through, and getting the most, out of the tenancy tribunal for a tenant. Opportunity to bring only the information relevant to Tenancy Tribunal to the forefront, rather than emphasising "working it out beforehand", as the website is wont to do.

Threats: Landlords and property management companies who will not support tenants being more informed and empowered to use the Tribunal because it's generally better for them to have uninformed tenants. The government bureaucracy wall to generally getting things done in a way that will help marginalised groups, because of the interests of parliament? The desire for them to keep things neutral and impartial.


TPA Website

Strengths: Tailored specifically for tenant's purposes. Good relevant content Also has parts about the landlords obligations and stuff for the tenant to look at presumably. Really good content for before, during, and after the journey of Tenancy Tribunal, including even what someone should do even before they move in (do I need that on mine? Probably...) A much more accessible tone, more user friendly to read and understand. Even has a section of more specific things that could happen within the TT process - "preparing your case". SO BRILLIANT!!! That is exactly what tenants need to be supported etc etc.
http://www.tpa.org.nz/page/preparing-your-case

Weaknesses: Weak-ish website layout and design, could be structured better, especially r.e. menu items on the navigation bar - there are 2 navigation bars when there might only need to be one. The content is again quite text heavy and would benefit from some structuring and perhaps illustration (good ol' VCD)!

Opportunities: Could really benefit from a unique or more interesting/fun/visually oriented journey of the Tenancy Tribunal? Instead of just a chunk of text.  Perhaps a more dynamic version of emailing... i.e. a chatbot for discussing problems and getting specific advice? Even to Tenant Advocates... because those are a thing. Also easy to share information and things on. Connection to the services of the TT so that cross touchpoint things can happen, like a pool for items and documents 

Funneling down a Proposal/ Research Question

From question to statement... Now is the time where we move from a research question to a statement, to present at the Supercrit next Friday.
Another technique is to go from broad to narrow, from general to specific.

From Question to Statement  + Broad to Specific

How can visual communication design inform and support vulnerable tenants in dealings with the Tenancy Tribunal (and potentially other matters of flatting and the law?) 

Visual communication design can inform and support tenants who are dealing with the Tenancy tribunal.

Tenants in NZ need to be supported and informed when dealing with the Tenancy Tribunal (and housing law in New Zealand) so they can have the best possible outcome for them. 


New research proposal template

For further clarity

1. The Tenancy Tribunal is the one mechanism that tenants have at their disposal to enforce the laws and ensure their landlords and property managers are behaving properly and legally. 
2. However, tenants’ experience with the Tribunal is commonly stressful, emotional, and frustrating because of its relative lack of usability and hostility. 

3. Therefore, tenants need to be more supported + informed when dealing with the Tenancy Tribunal (and housing law in New Zealand) so they can be empowered to use the Tenancy have better and fairer outcomes when dealing with a landlord that is trying to break the law… ??? 

User Journey + Transformation matrix

Experience Transformation Matrix


Before, the tenant feels: 

confused
stressed
angry
scared
emotional

After, we want the tenant to feel:

supported
confident
prepared 
calm


Before

1. Sarah signs a form in order to get her bond back from her property management company.
2. She receives only half of the money that they agreed she would get back in her bank account 6 weeks later. Sarah is confused. She realises the management company has fraudulently switched out the number of money on the form after she signed it. Sarah thinks: I’ll have to apply for the tenancy tribunal… gosh, what a big and scary job this is going to be so annoying! Sarah feels: Angry, stressed.
3. Sarah applies for the tribunal to see her case. She receives an email that says she has to compile all the evidence that she has for the tribunal case to proceed such as emails, documents, etc etc. Sarah thinks: Wow, why are so many documents required to go forwards with this? this is taking a lot of my time up finding all of them…Sarah feels: frustrated, confused.
4. Eventually Sarah is notified that she has achieved a hearing with the tenancy tribunal court. She checks the website and reads the process of what happens at a hearing from the website. She feels slightly more notified but still apprehensive of what might happen at HER hearing. Sarah thinks: there is no specific scenarios for me to look at from the past… Sarah feels: Apprehensive and nervous because of the formality of the situation, frustrated that its taking so much of her time. 
5. Sarah attends the court hearing. The tribunal allows you a support person who can sit there and not say anything, but she does not choose anyone because she thinks how long can this thing possibly take? Both parties state their sides to the judge, and Sarah is frustrated that the judge does not have all of her evidence in front of them to look at, even though nobody told her it was her responsibility to bring all the evidence! She thinks: Wow there’s parts of this that no one told me about on the website…  She feels: Not as prepared as she thought.
6. The opposition property management company keeps interrupting her and generally being disruptive in the court process, as a form of intimidation, and the situation is quite emotionally charged. Sarah thinks: Gosh they must know so much more about this process than me as a company, i’m just one tenant and this is the first time I've been through this process.  Sarah feels: very attacked and vulnerable,
7. Finally the judge makes a ruling. She gets most of her bond money back… However, part of the ruling is that a certain part of the money can not be awarded by the Tribunal, and that Sarah has to go to the Ministry of Business to get this particular money back… Sarah thinks: God I can’t be bothered after all of that palaver. Sarah feels: Emotionally and mentally exhausted after all the unexpected things that happened in the process that she was unaware could happen. 
8. Sarah’s name, unbeknownst to her, has appeared on a database that tells landlords which tenants have brought cases to the tribunal before. When she applies to other flats this can be used to discriminate against her without her knowledge.  

After

1. Sarah signs a form in order to get her bond back from her property management company.
2. She receives only half of the money that they agreed she would get back in her bank account 6 weeks later. Sarah is confused. She realises the management company has fraudulently switched out the number of money on the form after she signed it. Sarah consults the Resource that i’m going to design to see what her next course of action should be. It recommends the tribunal and gives her some information about getting prepared. Sarah thinks: wow better look at the tenancy tribunal resource Sarah feels: ready to apply for the tribunal. 
3. Sarah applies for the tribunal to see her case. She receives an email that says she has to compile all the evidence that she has for the tribunal case to proceed such as emails, documents, etc etc. Luckily the Resource has warned her that she should have a bunch of evidence ready in a folder to send to the tribunal, of anything to do with her case. It also recommends that she rings the 0800 free helpline for any extra questions she might have and even recommends some to ask in case she doesn’t know. Sarah quickly sends off her information that was already compiled, and moves on with her day. Sarah feels: knowledgeable and prepared, not overly inconvenienced.
4. Eventually Sarah is notified that she has achieved a hearing with the tenancy tribunal court. The resource outlines things that might happen in court, and outlines a few example scenarios from the past so that she knows how things might go for her in her situation. Sarah thinks: Wow its great that I have this resource to tell me specific things so that I can get the best outcome by examining past cases. Sarah feels: confident and ready
5. Sarah attends the court hearing. The tribunal allows you a support person who can sit there and not say anything. Sarah chooses to bring a support person because the Resource recommended it. Both parties state their sides to the judge. Sarah has all of her evidence printed out because Resource recommended it again, luckily, because the judge is not organised and is missing some of her information. She thinks: That’s lucky that this resource told me all these things that weren’t on the website  She feels: prepared and confident 
6. The opposition property management company keeps interrupting her and generally being disruptive in the court process, as a form of intimidation, and the situation is quite emotionally charged. Sarah time out option?   Sarah thinks: I can consult the Resource when i feel like i am a bit lost in court… chatbot option? Sarah feels: Supported and ready to check her app or whatever the fuck
7. Finally the judge makes a ruling and through an extremely long and laborious process of checking all the evidence that they can find. She gets most of her bond money back… However, part of the ruling is that a certain part of the money can not be awarded by the Tribunal, and that Sarah has to go to the Ministry of Business to get this particular money back…Luckily in her app or whatever there is a way to fast track this process and directly do the thing.  Sarah feels: Grateful that the process can be fast tracked and she can get all her money back?
8. At the start of this process, the Resource warned Sarah that her name would be added to a database that landlords can check to see if someone has taken a case to the tribunal, and tells her the process to request to get it taken off. Sarah thinks: Better get that taken off so that people can’t discriminate against me as a tenant! Sarah feels: Grateful for the information. 

One of the most common cases that is brought to the tribunal by tenants is the landlords trying to scalp your bond money for stupid shit that is totally illegal and/or unenforceable. The best thing you can do is be prepared way beforehand and then you have a good chance of getting all of your money back. 

Planning out the structure of my piece of writing

Structural planning. Bullet points etc.

Introduction

An anecdote or situation about using the Tenancy tribunal... how quite shit and intimidating it is for tenants going up against landlords or property companies with a much better knowledge of the system and stuff, stressful, hard, etc etc..... So what can be done to help!?


Background

The problems of renting in New Zealand are myriad. It's such a beast of an issue with so many conflicting interests at heart.. and the poor renters sit cold and damp at the bottom of the food chain, with little resources, time, money, to fight the system.
There is no magic bullet to solve every issue that is here (except policy change... and that is not in the realm of possibility with the current govt)!  Tenancy tribunal, history,

"LOTS OF STATISTICS N SHIT" 80 percent of ppl bringing cases to TT is landlords. meaning how can we make the system easier for tenants to use???? that they can use it to their advantage?

Quotes from my interviewees - yeah it would really help if people were more informed going in, if their landlord takes them on etc etc.


Question

How might design assist vulnerable tenants involved in a tenancy tribunal case?

Proposition

To design a service that:

• informs tenants
• assists tenants
• etc etc... when dealing with the tenancy tribunal. How to get the best outcome from their case. 

Design context 

"Experience design" .... user profile with the transformation matrix of before and after someone uses the tenancy tribunal without, and then with, my "thing" or whatever the fuck

Precedents

SWOT matrix

Method

Primary + secondary research... lol.... user personas, interviews. A random piece in there about the shared moment. 

Aim

To help tenants and make them feel supported and confident when interacting with the tenancy tribunal. 

Intention..... 

Direction 1.  A brief outline and wireframes and shit or something of how a user experience through this service might work....??? 

Direction 2. X 

Fin.