Back to all projects
Community SaaSiOS & AndroidSolo · End-to-End

Kinship: replacing 300 WhatsApp messages a week with one app residents trust.

A full-stack community management platform that gives apartment-society admins and residents a structured alternative to WhatsApp groups, Excel sheets, and paper registers.

Explore the app
Domain
Community Management App
Role
Designer, Developer, Tester, Marketer
Duration
3 weeks · Solo
Status
Testing phase
In depth

Project breakdown

01Problem

Problem Context

Residential apartment societies were running everything manually — WhatsApp groups for announcements, paper registers for resident records, Google Forms for event sign-ups, and Excel sheets for tracking approvals. No single system held it together. In a society with 100–300 flats, this broke down fast: admins (almost always unpaid volunteers) spent hours every week on repetitive coordination, and residents had no visibility into anything without messaging a person directly. Event coordinators couldn't enjoy the events they ran because they were fielding constant questions in real time.

02Background

What was happening before this existed

The background and trigger behind the project.

Before the project

Coordination lived entirely across disconnected tools — chat threads, spreadsheets, and paper — with no shared source of truth between admins and residents.

Why it mattered

The manual process didn't just slow things down — it created unpaid, invisible labor for admins and constant uncertainty for residents who had no way to confirm their own status without asking a person.

03Users & Context

Who this was built for, and where

Target user, environment, and context.

Target users

  • Residents of apartment societies — no defined age limit, any community context
  • Society administrators — typically unpaid volunteers managing the operation
  • Event coordinators running activities on the ground

Environment

Any residential community or housing society, accessed primarily on smartphones (iOS and Android), in moments of everyday community life — moving in, checking event details, or showing up to an event.

04User Flows

How it actually works

User journey, flow, friction, and what got simplified.

Resident journey

Register flat details → get approved by admin → discover community events → register for activities → attend with a QR ticket.

Admin journey

Configure the society → approve residents → create and schedule events → run them live, scanning tickets in real time.

Friction points identified

  • Residents couldn't tell if spots were still open before starting registration
  • Admins had no way to separate pre-approved flats from ones needing manual review
  • Group registrations required re-entering team members every time, with no saved list
  • No confirmation after registering — residents had no reference point
  • Event details were buried in WhatsApp chat history

What I simplified

  • Login by block + flat number + PIN — no account creation, matching how people already think about where they live
  • Registration cut to two steps (date → who) with family members pre-filled
  • Spot availability moved from a post-submit error to a badge shown before entry
  • QR tickets generated entirely on-device — no email, no PDF, no third-party service
  • Admin approvals reduced to one screen, single tap per flat
05Experience Goals

The emotional stakes

Trust, frustration, and the feeling the design needed to create.

Before the solution

Residents felt uncertain and a little powerless — registering for something meant trusting that a message reached the right person, with no way to confirm it had. Admins felt the quiet resentment of unpaid, repetitive work that never seemed to end.

What the UI needed to create

Confidence and closure: every action — registering, approving, checking in — needed an immediate, visible confirmation, so nobody had to wonder whether something had "actually happened."

How this shaped the design

This is why the spot-availability badge moved before the registration step instead of after, why every registration ends in a visible QR ticket rather than a silent form submission, and why admin approvals collapse into a single tappable decision instead of a back-and-forth thread.

06Behavior

The behavior loop

What people actually did, and what the product needed to change.

Repeated behavior observed

Residents would repeatedly approach event organizers in person to ask when their slot was or whether they were confirmed — interrupting the organizer's ability to actually run the event.

The workaround it replaced

Residents had to physically find and sit with organizers to get an answer, which meant organizers often couldn't participate in or enjoy the events they were running.

The shift this product makes

Status — registered, confirmed, checked in — becomes something a resident checks on their own screen, not something they ask another person for. That single change is what gives coordinators their event back.

07Impact

Proof & metrics

What's measured, and what's still being validated.

Research sample size
To be validated
Task completion rate
To be validated
Time saved per admin
To be validated
User quotes
To be added

Qualitative impact (observed)

  • Admin coordination overhead reduced — registration, approval, spot checks, and cancellations now happen independently through the app instead of requiring a message or call
  • Residents gained visibility into their own registration status without needing to ask anyone
  • Managing 200 flats began to feel comparable to managing 20, since the system absorbs the repetitive coordination work
08Process

From idea to shipped app

Process, system, and build.

Process

Reviewed past events run manually to document the actual list of problems, then interviewed co-hosts who had helped run those events to gather and group friction points. From there: user journey maps, wireframes, a design system, final screens, and then a working build.

What I owned

The full pipeline, solo — research synthesis, IA, wireframes, visual design system, and the iOS/Android build itself.

09Results

STAR summary, before/after, and screens

STAR summary

S
Situation

Society admins managed hundreds of flats manually through WhatsApp, Excel, and paper. Residents had no structured way to register for events or track approvals.

T
Task

Design and build a full-stack mobile app for both admin configuration and resident self-service — covering approvals, events, and a QR check-in system — on iOS and Android.

A
Action

Reviewed past events and documented problems, interviewed co-hosts, mapped user journeys, built wireframes and a full design system, then developed the app solo.

R
Result

Coordination that once required a message, call, or visit now happens independently through the app — giving residents transparency and admins the ability to scale without added effort.

Before & after

Before

Coordination scattered across WhatsApp, Excel, and paper. Admins absorbing hours of unpaid manual work. Residents with no visibility into their own status, repeatedly interrupting organizers mid-event to ask.

After

A single app where registration, approval, and check-in happen independently. Residents see their own status anytime. Admins manage 200 flats with the effort it used to take to manage 20.

10Screens

Selected screens

Screen captures and prototype — to be added.

Screen captures and prototype embed — to be added.

Resident
Event List
to be added
Registration
Wizard
to be added
QR Ticket
Screen
to be added

Want the details, or want to work together?