Key One
Landlord Connect is a mobile application developed by Key One, designed to help landlords and property owners efficiently manage their rental finances.
Simplifying Property Finance for Landlords
Landlord Connect is a mobile application developed by Key One Realty Group, a leading real estate company in Dubai. The app is built to empower landlords and property owners with an intuitive tool to manage rental income, track expenses, and monitor the financial health of their properties — all from one centralized dashboard.
As the UI/UX Designer, I was responsible for the complete redesign and rebranding of the mobile application. My task involved modernizing the user interface, enhancing usability across all key touchpoints, and reimagining the app's visual identity to align with Key One's premium brand image. This included conducting user research, mapping user journeys, creating wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes, and delivering a design system optimized for real-world property management needs.
Understanding Key One: Landlord Connect
Problem Statement
Many landlords in Dubai juggle multiple properties and rely on spreadsheets or mismatched tools to track rental income, expenses, and statutory fees. This fragmented approach leads to data inconsistencies, missed payments, and wasted time—undermining their ability to make informed financial decisions and stay compliant with local regulations.
Solution: Redesign and rebrand Landlord Connect into a unified, mobile-first platform that centralizes all financial management tasks for landlords.
Questions
To ensure Landlord Connect effectively addressed landlords' needs, we framed our discovery around the following questions:
- What are the most time-consuming steps landlords take to record and reconcile property income and expenses?
- How do Dubai landlords currently track mandatory fees, and where do gaps or errors occur?
- What triggers landlords to generate financial reports—tax filings, audits, tenant renewals—and what formats do they prefer?
- Which mobile workflows (e.g., one-tap entry, filters, alerts) are most critical for landlords on the go?
- How do landlords perceive data security and access permissions when sharing reports with accountants or co-owners?
Audience & Key Features
User Persona
To ensure Key One: Landlord Connect meets the needs of its target audience, a detailed user persona was created based on audience research:
Key Features
Landlord Connect must integrate these several key features that is designed to simplify financial management for landlords and empower them with real-time property insights:
Real-Time Financial Dashboard
Provides landlords with a live view of total income, expenses, and outstanding balances across all properties, updated instantly.
Smart Transaction Filtering
Allows users to filter entries by date, category (income/expense), or specific property — making it easy to analyze cash flow trends.
Multi-Property Overview
Enables seamless switching between properties and offers a clear snapshot of the financial performance of each unit.
Secure Cloud Access
Ensures user data is securely stored and accessible anytime, anywhere — with AES-level encryption and cloud backup support.
Local Compliance Awareness
Helps landlords manage recurring Dubai-specific obligations like DEWA, service charges, and Ejari renewals, with customizable reminders.
User-Friendly Interface
Features a clean, modern design that makes managing property finances fast and frustration-free — optimized for mobile-first landlords.
Designing the Solution
Structure
Once I had defined Landlord Connect's goals, user persona, and key features, I moved into the wireframing and structural design phase. This stage was crucial in shaping how landlords would navigate the app and interact with its core functions. The objective was to create a seamless, intuitive experience that reduced the complexity of financial management for landlords juggling multiple properties. I focused on laying out a clear user flow and organizing content in a way that prioritized real-time financial insights, fast access to transaction data, and easy report generation.
The wireframes outlined the main screens, including the Home Dashboard, Transaction Management, Property Overview, Report Generation, and Settings. The Home Dashboard provided a real-time snapshot of rental income, expenses, and outstanding balances across all properties. Transaction Management allowed users to log and filter entries by property, type, and date. The Property Overview enabled landlords to view individual property performance, while the Report Generation section made exporting professional PDF statements simple. Together, these foundational layouts ensured that the final design would meet the practical needs of Dubai-based landlords and deliver a user experience that felt both modern and efficient.
Sketch Designs
Low-Fidelity Designs
Designing the Visual Identity
Style Guide
In defining Landlord Connect's visual identity, I developed a cohesive style guide to ensure consistency and clarity across all design elements. The visual language was crafted to convey professionalism, trust, and approachability—key qualities for a financial management app aimed at landlords.
The color palette balances warm, inviting tones with vibrant accents to highlight important financial information and positive statuses. These are complemented by classic black and white elements that provide strong contrast for text and interface components, ensuring readability and accessibility. The typography uses the Inter font family exclusively, chosen for its modern, clean, and highly readable qualities. Headings are styled with semibold and medium weights to establish hierarchy, while regular weight is used for paragraphs to maintain clarity and comfort in reading. Together, these visual choices create a polished, user-friendly experience tailored to the fast-paced needs of property owners in Dubai.
Final Designs
Building upon the established style guide, the final designs for Landlord Connect strike a balance between functionality and visual appeal. The user interface emphasizes intuitive navigation, clear visual hierarchies, and straightforward interactions, all crafted to simplify complex financial management tasks. Key screens such as the dashboard, transaction management, and report generation showcase clean layouts that prioritize essential information while minimizing clutter. This approach ensures landlords can effortlessly monitor their property finances, make informed decisions quickly, and manage multiple properties with ease—delivering a seamless and efficient experience tailored to their busy lifestyles.
All Final Designs
High-Fidelity Designs
Overall Thoughts
Designing Landlord Connect was both an exciting and fulfilling experience that allowed me to combine creativity, user-centered thinking, and technical expertise to solve real challenges faced by landlords. From the initial discovery and research phases to wireframing, visual design, and final prototyping, every step was deeply informed by understanding the unique needs of Dubai-based property owners and their complex financial workflows.
By focusing on clarity, usability, and a cohesive visual language, I was able to create an app that not only simplifies property finance management but also provides landlords with confidence and control over their portfolios. This project reinforced the importance of balancing aesthetics with functionality and demonstrated how thoughtful design can truly transform everyday tasks into seamless digital experiences. Overall, the journey of designing Landlord Connect was a rewarding testament to the impact of user-centric design principles and continuous iteration in creating meaningful, effective tools.