Our Block
Our Block is a mobile-first, grassroots neighborhood sharing platform that makes borrowing from neighbors feel safe, normal, and joyful. Instead of treating sharing as a transaction, the product frames it as a community ritual — one that reduces overconsumption while strengthening local social bonds. The project reimagines the sharing economy not as a marketplace, but as a social system of mutual care that happens to be mediated by technology.
The problem
Despite growing awareness of sustainability, most households continue to overconsume. People frequently buy tools and objects they only use once — drills, ladders, power washers, sewing machines, or gardening equipment — even when these items already exist within their neighborhood.
The goal
Make borrowing feel socially acceptable, not uncomfortable while making lending feel low-effort and rewarding. In addition, keep sharing primarily within small, trusted geographic circles and increase users’ sense of belonging to their neighborhood.
My role
My role in this project was end-to-end UX design: from problem framing and systems thinking to user journeys, interaction design, and high-fidelity UI for both the mobile app and supporting website.
User research
Through qualitative interviews and behavioral analysis, three core insights emerged:
People want to help, but dislike coordination overhead.
Neighbors are generally willing to lend items, they just don’t want complicated logistics.
Trust is built through proximity, not ratings.
People trust “the neighbor three streets away” more than an anonymous stranger with a five-star rating.
Sharing is emotional, not purely rational.
Borrowing often triggers feelings of vulnerability, embarrassment, or indebtedness. The design must address these emotions directly.
Pain points
Fear of misuse or loss of item
People who have tools to lend or that want to help their neighbours earh the misuse, damage or loss of the tools.
Akwardness asking strangers
Busy readers find it hard to connect with other users because of the constant storm of new books to read and their inability to do so because of their busy schedule.
Bothering neighbours
People with similar tastes have no way of connecting outside the app or directly chat. It’s all restricted to the comments sections of books, visible to all.
Fear of damaging borrowed items
Users find it hard to find book recommendations to similar books they read and only see trendy books or grouped by categories.
User personas
Persona: Sarah Amali
Problem statement:
Sarah is a busy social media manager and mum who needs to find new books to read with her daughter because all the new popular books are not kids friendly.
Persona: Lee Min Ho
Problem statement:
MinHo is a busy korean singer who needs to find an online community without revealing his identity because he loves discussing books with people and creating connection but doesn’t want people to recognise him.
User journey map
In this user journey map the focus was to find all the challenges Sarah faced when trying to find new books to read, this highlighted the lack of filtering or categorizing of the app.
This user journey map focuses on the interaction between users, highlighting the difficulties faced when trying to have an interaction beyond a comment.
Paper wireframes
A first rough wiraframes were created to gather and test the indispensable functions and screens with users and make the necessary changes in the architecture of the app. The final layouts were digitalised into low quality wireframes.
Digital wireframes
For the digital wireframes, the final aspect of the Interface was refined after a preliminary testing of the paper wireframes regarding usability flow and refined the new added functions.
New functions
New chat between users function, allawing a new way to connect between readers.
Simplified reading progress tracker allawing for an easier reading tracking experience.
Book club page which help users easily connect over one common topic.
New functions
New search option always present allawing the search of new books.
Filter function allowing to only see only books in the selected categories solving the pain point of seeing inappropriate books.
Discover page showing books grouped by different themes, allawing for the discovery of new and unexpected books.
New functions
Multiple filter selection allawing to only show books that meed all the categories, solving the pain point of showing adult books while looking for kids books and also allawing for a more precise book search.
Save filter option keeping it active until you leave the screen to any other main page, not having to set the filter every time you check a book.
Final screens
Chat
Filter
My books
Home screen
Discover
Notificaitons
Messages
Club horror
Club romantasy
Search
Profile
Accesibility considerations
The contrast between the text and background and, between sections has been increased to ensure that users with visual impairments would have a greater experience.
A clear delimitation between sections and elements was increased to ensure ease of navigations from users of all ages including senior users.
A title next to the icons and alternative text was added for visually impaired users since they also are an important part of the users thanks to audiobooks and text to speach tools.
Impact
The redesign significantly improved overall user experience and usability, while also introducing additional functionality with the multiple-filter search and a Chat section, enabling richer interaction between users that is not available on similar platforms.
Next steps
The next steps are the further developement of the book club function and explore the idea of taking the book clubs offline to increase the connection between users beyond reading books but creating a community.