Role: Business Developer / Product Owner / UX Specialist**
Organization: MKB Fastighet AB
Years: 2014–2017
Domain: Real estate · Housing management · Service operations
Impact: Streamlined repair request workflow for ~95,000 tenants
Overview
MKB Fastighet is one of Sweden’s largest municipal housing companies. Tenants regularly request service repairs for heating, plumbing, electricity, and household fixes. The previous repair process was slow, unclear, and required tenants to navigate 11 separate steps, which created frustration and unnecessary support load.
I led the redesign of the entire service repair experience, reducing the flow from 11 to 4 steps. The result was a faster, clearer, mobile-friendly solution that improved satisfaction for tenants and increased operational efficiency for MKB’s maintenance teams.
This was a combined UX, service design, and product ownership effort with measurable impact.
The Challenge
Before the redesign, tenants faced:
- Long, confusing forms spanning multiple pages
- Steps hidden behind unclear labels and terminology
- No integrated scheduling — tenants had to wait for callbacks
- Inconsistent instructions depending on device and browser
- Unnecessary required fields leading to drop-offs
- Support calls triggered by “what happens next?” uncertainty
Maintenance teams suffered too:
- Unstructured incoming requests
- Missing information needed to plan work
- Scheduling requiring manual coordination by phone
- High admin burden for simple repairs
The process was costing time, money, and user trust.
My Role
I led the full lifecycle:
- Mapped the existing process end-to-end from tenant to field worker
- Analyzed data: support logs, drop-offs, device usage, internal workflows
- Ran workshops with maintenance staff, customer service, and tenants
- Designed the new UX for the repair flow
- Introduced mobile-first interaction patterns
- Defined requirements & user stories for development
- Coordinated with system owners and backend suppliers
- Validated prototypes with tenants and internal staff
I acted as the bridge between business needs, technical constraints, and user experience.
Approach
1. Discovery
- Interviewed tenants from different demographic groups
- Shadowed customer-service staff handling repair calls
- Mapped the full technician workflow: request → planning → visit → closure
- Identified friction in both user-facing and internal processes
- Documented regulatory and safety constraints for certain repairs
Insight: Most user errors were created by the system, not the users.
2. Service Design Mapping
I created a unified service blueprint:
- Tenant steps
- Customer-service steps
- Technician steps
- System interactions
- Pain points
- Opportunities for automation
This revealed clear redundancy and unnecessary handoffs.
3. UX & Interaction Design
Key improvements:
- Reduced the workflow from 11 → 4 steps
- Created smart conditional fields to avoid irrelevant questions
- Introduced a clear summary screen to reduce support calls
- Added contextual guidance for common repair scenarios
- Implemented mobile-first design, as >60% of tenants used mobile devices
- Simplified terminology and wrote user-friendly microcopy
- Improved error handling and confirmation messages
4. Scheduling System Integration
A critical innovation was adding real-time appointment booking:
- Synced with technicians’ calendars
- Allowed tenants to choose time slots directly
- Removed the need for callback scheduling
- Reduced inbound calls significantly
This also increased technician utilization, as time slots became more predictable.
5. Validation
- Usability tests with actual tenants
- Iterative refinement based on task completion and error rates
- Internal validation with service staff and technicians to confirm feasibility
- Final alignment with IT and system suppliers
Deliverables
- New end-to-end repair request flow
- Mobile-first interaction design
- Flowcharts, IA, and low–mid–high fidelity prototypes
- Final UI specifications
- Updated service blueprint
- Requirements documentation for development teams
Impact
For Tenants
- Faster, clearer, more intuitive service request process
- Ability to book appointments directly
- Fewer errors and reduced uncertainty
- Higher satisfaction and fewer abandoned requests
For MKB
- Significantly reduced support volume
- Lower admin cost for scheduling
- More predictable technician scheduling
- Higher quality incoming requests
- Improved internal workflow efficiency
For the Organization
- Demonstrated value of UX and service design in operational processes
- Built cross-functional alignment between housing, IT, service, and customer service
- Strengthened digital capabilities at MKB during a critical transformation period
Reflections
This project showed how small UX improvements, when embedded in a service design approach, can create disproportionate value for an organization. It was a turning point at MKB — reducing friction for tenants while giving staff a more structured, predictable workflow.
The combination of UX, operational insight, and business logic is something I’ve carried throughout my career.