Framing the Problem

Apartment living often amplifies loneliness and detachment. Renters pay thousands each year without ever feeling true ownership or connection to the communities they inhabit. Flow set out to change that: not only to make rent simple, but to turn everyday apartment life into an opportunity for belonging, wellness, and growth.

Approach

As Founding Product Designer, I led the design vision and execution for The Neighbor App, Flow’s resident-facing platform. As I built the team, I eventually managed and guided five other designers across Flow. From the beginning, our mandate went far beyond utility - the app needed to serve as both infrastructure and connective tissue for community. To get there, we combined qualitative research, iterative prototyping, and system-level design thinking:

• Deep Research with Residents

  • Conducted 1:1 interviews and group sessions with renters across demographics to uncover patterns of loneliness, frustration with existing tools, and opportunities for connection.

  • Synthesized findings into design principles: Reduce friction, cultivate ownership, foster connection.

• Qualitative Studies in the Field

  • Shadowed residents during their “moments of maintenance” (rent day, amenity use, repair requests) to map pain points.

  • Facilitated co-creation workshops where neighbors shared what would make them feel proud of where they live.

• Handling Legacy Systems and Crossing Borders

  • Legacy system migration: We designed flows to gracefully handle tenants coming from older property management systems, including expired tokens, deep links, and magic links, ensuring residents could continue seamlessly without being locked out.

  • Smart branching logic: The onboarding journey accounts for multiple entry points - email lookups, deep link invites, and existing tokens - while routing users into the right path whether they had a lease on file or were simply “Flow Curious.”

  • Global expansion: The app was architected with region-specific flows, differentiating between US and Saudi Arabia leases at launch, and laying the groundwork for expansion into the Middle East with adaptable migration and onboarding processes.

  • Tenant-first continuity: By blending support hand-offs, automated credential verification, and contextual deep links, we preserved user trust while transitioning legacy accounts into the new Neighbor experience without disruption.

Product Rollout and Evolution

The Neighbor app launched in stages - each feature designed to address both immediate needs and deeper community goals:

1. Rent Payments (Launch Foundation)

   • Simplified rent with transparent, intuitive flows.

   • Created trust by making payments feel modern and effortless, while serving as the first touchpoint in building app engagement.

2. Amenity Booking

   • Reimagined shared spaces as hubs of connection.

   • Designed flows that make booking effortless but also encourage shared use (e.g., coworking areas, wellness rooms, social events).

3. Wellness Integration

   • Introduced features supporting physical and mental well-being, like guided community programs and local nature experiences.

   • Positioning the app as a tool for deeper connection - not just convenience.

4. Community Commerce

   • Built out a marketplace concept where neighbors can share passions and services: yoga sessions, dog-walking, art lessons, local businesses.

   • Designed a framework that makes participation simple, safe, and rewarding, turning neighbors into contributors.

5. AI Chat for Everyday Needs

   • Designed and deployed a conversational assistant to handle maintenance requests, FAQs, and resident services.

   • Reduced friction in common interactions, freeing neighbors to focus on living - not logistics.

Outcomes

The launch of the Neighbor App proved that renters want more than just utility. They want to feel seen, supported, and connected. By starting with foundational features like rent payments and layering in AI-driven services, amenity access, and community commerce, we created a platform that not only solved real problems but also began to shift how residents engaged with their homes and each other. The results reflected both practical wins for adoption and deeper signals of belonging.

• Adoption: Rent payments became the anchor, driving early engagement and trust.

• Engagement: AI chat and amenity booking increased daily/weekly app use beyond “bill pay moments.”

• Community Signals: Early pilots showed neighbors collaborating through commerce features - from informal services to wellness events.

Reflection

The Neighbor App is more than a resident app - it’s a case study in designing for belonging. By combining essential utilities with tools for connection, we reframed renting from a transaction into a lifestyle.

For me as a designer, it was an exercise in balancing the pragmatic (rent, maintenance, service flows) with the aspirational (loneliness reduction, ownership, community). I led the process from early research to shipped product, building a design system in collaboration with the team that could flex from practical payments to human connection.