Tourly

End-to-end Product Design Project

Carnegie Mellon University, 2024

Tourly is a virtual open house platform designed to connect renters with verified property listings through live-streamed, interactive tours. Users can browse a calendar of scheduled tours and select properties they’re interested in exploring. Each listing on the platform is verified by Tourly, ensuring that all properties are legitimate and accurately represented. The platform can link to your personal calendar, reminding you of scheduled tours lined up. When a tour begins, renters join a Zoom-like webinar format, where they can watch a live walkthrough led by the landlord or property agent and ask questions in real-time through an interactive chat.

Overview

Duration

6 weeks

Team

Sapna Vohra, Manasi Mehta, Cicy Zhao, Yun-Ching Chuang, Christy Yao

Software Used

Figma, Adobe Suite, Miro

Conducted primary and secondary research into the problem area.
Generated problem statement led brainstorming ideating sessions.
Formulated the solution and created UX maps and App maps.
Assisted with lo-fi wireframes and conducted usability testing.
Prototyped hi-fi screens.

Contribution

Role

UX Research, UI/UX Design

Problem Area

Pittsburgh hosted an estimated 10,300 international students across Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh in 2023 - landlords and management companies can benefit significantly by making the rental process more inclusive for this large and growing market. By implementing remote-friendly tools and verified listings, they can attract and retain reliable, long-term tenants, reduce vacancies, and streamline communication, ultimately creating a smoother and more trusted rental experience for all parties involved.

International students struggle to find secure, budget-friendly apartments in safe neighborhoods due to a lack of remote resources. This issue affects thousands of students yearly, many of whom report prolonged stress, uncertainty, and frustration with current rental systems that fail to accommodate remote needs effectively. The stakes are high: without reliable and inclusive support, renters risk substandard and often unsafe living conditions, impacting both their mental and physical well-being.

Tourly addresses the key challenges in the rental market—transparency, accessibility, and secure communication -by aggregating live-streamed virtual tours on a single, centralized platform. Each listing is verified to mitigate scams, fostering trust and confidence, especially for international renters facing time zones, language barriers, or geographic distance. The platform’s interactive, real-time format allows tenants to engage directly with property representatives, ask questions, and resolve concerns in the moment, creating a transparent and seamless experience. By prioritizing ease of access, user confidence, and clear communication, Tourly transforms remote renting into a reliable and stress-free process.

Solution and Outcome

POV of Tenant :

Booking the virtual tour :

Tenants can discover Tourly while browsing apartments on external platforms like Zillow or Apartments.com. When they find a listing that interests them, they can click the Tourly icon, which redirects them to the Tourly website. From there, tenants can seamlessly sign up for a virtual tour by selecting a convenient date and time from the available showing options, making the process simple and efficient.

Attending the virtual tour :

Tenants can manage all the tours they’ve signed up for in the My Tours section, where they can conveniently join upcoming tours.

The tour-taking screen is designed for a seamless and interactive experience. It features a live chat where tenants can ask questions in real-time, supported by AI prompts to assist with relevant queries. Below the live stream, key details about the apartment—such as amenities and rental terms—are readily available for cross-referencing during the tour. Additionally, a floor plan is displayed, with the live location of the tour giver moving on the map, ensuring tenants can clearly understand what part of the apartment they are viewing.

Rating the virtual tour :

After the tour is complete, tenants can choose to save the live stream to their My Tours page, allowing them to rewatch it later or share it with others. Tenants are then prompted to rate the quality of the tour for Tourly’s records, ensuring continuous improvement, and rate the apartment itself for their own records. Additionally, tenants can jot down quick notes about the apartment, which are saved under the Past Tours section in their My Tours page. This feature makes it easy to compare multiple tours at a glance, helping tenants stay organized and make informed decisions. From this point, renters can return to browsing more available tours and repeat the process.

POV of Landlord / Rental Agency :

Onboarding and Verification

Tourly’s landing page prompts users to choose between “Give Tours” or “Take Tours”, determining which side of the platform they access. Landlords who select “Give Tours” are guided through the account creation process, where they can list and host virtual tours for available properties. Tourly ensures trust and transparency by verifying their information, including property management details and a valid rental license, before allowing them to proceed. This step guarantees that all listings on the platform are credible and reliable for tenants.

Listing Syncing and Viewing Scheduling

Rental agencies and landlords can begin by creating listings on Tourly, seamlessly syncing all apartment details by linking an external listing, such as one from Zillow. This ensures all relevant information is available on Tourly’s platform as well. Once the listing is verified, landlords can select the days and times they want to show the apartment virtually. Once completed, the listing goes live on Tourly, allowing tenants to sign up for virtual tours. Landlords can then manage their scheduled tours in their My Tours page, where they can easily view, update, or modify tour details as needed.

Process

UX Mapping

Once the team settled on an idea to take forward, we mapped out the user flow of the website and created the information architecture necessary to build it.