EviChat: Research & Designing AI-Powered Eviction Guidance for Landlords and Tenants

Eviction is a complicated process that places landlords and tenants in difficult positions. Landlords may struggle to recover unpaid rent or regain possession of their properties, while tenants may face the possibility of losing their homes without fully understanding their rights or available options. EviChat explores how AI can make the eviction process easier to understand and navigate by helping landlords and tenants access relevant information, organize their next steps, and prepare draft documents for professional review.

problem

A complicated process with high personal and financial stakes. Eviction is not simply a matter of sending a notice or asking someone to leave a property. The process can involve legal requirements, documentation, deadlines, communication, and jurisdiction-specific procedures. For landlords, navigating these requirements can create uncertainty around recovering unpaid rent, documenting a dispute, and taking the appropriate next steps. For tenants, the same process can create anxiety about housing security, unfamiliar legal terminology, deadlines, and the consequences of making the wrong decision. Both groups need reliable information, but they approach the problem from fundamentally different positions. Traditional legal assistance can be difficult to access when cost, time, and uncertainty are already major concerns.

solution

EviChat is an AI-powered eviction guidance platform designed around the needs of landlords and tenants. Instead of presenting the same generic chatbot to everyone, the proposed experience uses role selection and guided interactions to establish context, surface relevant information, and help users work toward an appropriate next step.

Case Study

EviChat reinforced an important principle in my approach to product design: complex products require more than well-arranged screens.

They require an understanding of the people using them, the systems surrounding them, the decisions they need to make, and the consequences of getting those decisions wrong.

Designing for landlords and tenants meant considering two different perspectives within one product, while ensuring that accessibility and convenience did not come at the expense of trust or responsible AI use.

My goal was to create an experience that makes a complicated process easier to navigate while being honest about the limits of the technology.

That is the kind of product design I want to continue doing: solving real problems by connecting user needs, business objectives, and the practical realities of building a product.

year

2024

timeframe

1 Year

tools

Figma, Online Web, JotForm, Google Workspace, Zoom