MoreHarvest
Twenty years of property skill, zero digital product. Now live in 5 regulated markets.
MoreHarvest had 20 years of property expertise and no digital product. Three years later, accredited investors in 5 markets buy Japanese real estate through an app, every flow tested before engineering.
Role
Founding designer. Built the design function, the research practice, and the design system from zero, across iOS, Android, and web.
Team
CEO, PM, VP Technology, CTO, iOS/Android/Web engineers, localization partners
The challenge
KYC and AML rules across 5 APAC jurisdictions . Plus accredited investors who had to grasp and trust every step.
The approach
Every design decision started as a testable hypothesis . Compliance was designed in from the start, not bolted on.
+47%
Comprehension improvement
+61%
User confidence
83%
Task success rate
91%
User satisfaction (MVP)
+22%
Verification success
Every design choice started as a written hypothesis with a measurable outcome. Before a single screen, every known problem went into one shared Problem Definition Matrix.
Discovery and audit
0
sessions
Stakeholder interviews
0
issues
Heuristic evaluation
0
versions
Prototype walkthroughs
0
gaps
Gap analysis
Nodesignuntiltheproblemwaswrittendown.
Testing framework
Metrics for clarity, confidence, and conversion. Every test ended in a pass or fail decision, on record.
Clarity
Comprehension and error rate.
Confidence
Trust and willingness to proceed.
Conversion
Task completion and drop-off.
Ifdesignchange,thenexpectedoutcome,measuredbyspecificmetric.
Testing rounds
Nine rounds over 8 months, from basic navigation to the full app. One round killed an entire feature set.
Navigation
Restructured navigation and added contextual onboarding to reduce drop-off.Users couldn't find basic features. Restructured navigation and added contextual onboarding to reduce drop-off.
Baseline
Validation
Investment flow
Refocused on core investment and simplified the purchase flow.Users rejected the Experience concept entirely. Refocused on core investment and simplified the purchase flow.
Baseline
Validation
Portfolio
Consolidated verification into one flow, improving completion by +22%.KYC friction caused abandonment. Consolidated verification into a single in-app flow, improving completion by +22%.
Baseline
Validation
MVP validation
Validated that earlier improvements held together in the integrated product.End-to-end testing with accredited investors across all markets. Validated that improvements from earlier rounds held together in the integrated product.
Baseline
Validation
Launch
We launched with every flow tested. Every decision is traceable to evidence. Now we improve on live investor data.
- Challenges1/4
Legal rules in 5 markets became design constraints. Time with real investors was scarce, so every research session had to count.
- Insights2/4
Compliance sounds like it constrains the design. In practice it sharpens it. Investor trust worked the same way: built on proof, not intuition.
- What wasn’t built3/4
The first vision included property tours, hotel stays, and tiered rewards. Testing showed zero interest. We killed them. That time went to the core flows investors actually used.
- What’s next4/4
The app is live. The testing framework now runs against real investor data instead of prototypes.
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