AI Agency Website
A platform that allows the user to feel a neighborhood before
they move there
THE PROBLEM
Listing sites can tell you a walk score, but they can't tell you what your street actually sounds like at 7am. Existing tools solve the information problem but not the feeling problem - and that gap was the thing the whole project set out to close. Not "what's nearby", but "what does it feel like to live here."
THE RESEARCH
I wanted the good, the bad, and the ugly on each participants moving experience.
KEY INSIGHTS
People don't
have time in
their schedule
to properly
research a
neighborhood
before moving
It's hard to
know the
day-to-day
feel of a place
from online
research
alone
People want
just one
platform to
compare,
research, and
"feel out" a
neighborhood
POINT OF VIEW
A young professional who is moving for work needs a way to understand the social and cultural feel of a neighborhood before committing, because online maps and ratings only tell them what is there, not what it actually feels like to live there.
OPPORTUNITY
Help movers understand the day-to-day feel of a
neighborhood before they ever visit
TASK FLOWS
Built to keep every entry point - search, save, compare, filter - landing on the same sensory core.
THE DESIGN
The Block's identity centers on the five senses - sight, touch, smell, sound, taste - expressed by recurring icons across the welcome screen, sensory filters and neighborhood pages.
CONCLUSION
Users called the sensory framing a unique take on neighborhood exploration and said resident testimonies gave it a trustworthy feel.
IMPACT
Addressed the core research finding (data without
feel), reframed moving from "Did I choose
correctly?" to "I already know what this feels like,"
and positioned The Block for potential partnerships
with platforms like Zillow/Niche
REFLECTION
The key lesson was resisting the pull toward easy, quantifiable data (walkability, crime stats) in favor of harder-to-fake sensory truths - since that's what research showed people actually lacked.