A new country. Too many loose ends.
For students preparing to study abroad, finding accommodation was only one part of the problem. They also needed help understanding the visa process and what to do next. SchoolAxis was already supporting students with those tasks. My team was brought in to turn that service into a digital experience.
Connecting the website to the service.
I worked on the UI and UX across the public website, student dashboard and admin dashboard over two months. I mapped the journeys, organised the key features and designed the interfaces. The work needed to make sense for students searching for a place and for the team managing their requests.
Start with the place they need.
I organised the experience around searching for accommodation near the student’s destination. The listing and detail screens brought the options into one place, while wishlists gave students a way to keep properties they wanted to return to. The dashboard connected recent searches, saved properties and bookings so they could continue without starting again.
Give the team a view of the same journey.
The admin dashboard was part of the product, too. I designed a separate space for the team to manage platform activity. Keeping the student and operational journeys connected mattered: a clear front end still depends on someone being able to follow through behind it.
Design the move, not just the search.
This project made me think beyond finding a property. Students were preparing for a major change, often from another country. The experience needed to help them understand where they were in the process and what they could do next. The archived work documents the completed designs; it does not include measured booking or conversion results.