WtC Rental System Improvement
B2B Service System Redesign for Clear, Mission-Aligned Collaboration
A system-level redesign that streamlines event rentals for the Welcome to Chinatown (WtC) — a nonprofit for support community small business — team by reducing coordination time, clarifying expectations, and supporting mission-aligned collaboration.
Built on existing tools and validated with stakeholders and users, the system is ready for implementation.
Team
Solo Product Designer (Me) + 1 Engineer
Timeline
9/2025 - now
WtC Stakeholders
Founders, Creative Director, Events Manager
Focus
Product Design, UX Research, System Service
Background
Welcome to Chinatown (WtC) is a community-based nonprofit in NYC supporting Chinatown's cultural and economic resilience, supporting local small businesses. They host a wide range of events within a modular event space called The Hub.
As event volume increased, WtC managed event rentals across emails, texts, phone calls, and Airtable, creating a complex coordination workflow.
Problem Framing
Clarifying the stakeholders’ goals
To ground the challenge, I conducted a 30-minute light talks with stakeholders to understand their current needs, business goals, and problems.
Stakeholders’ talks revealed that:
Scattered communication limited rental efficiency, making it a business priority to establish a unified, goal-aligned rental system.
How might we build a clear and structured rental entry point that connects inquiries and mission alignment?
Research
Competitive Research
To understand how similar nonprofit rental platforms structure their rental experience, I reviewed a small set of comparable spaces and leasing pages.
Key insights:
Centralize rental information in one flow
Set pricing, rules, availability upfront
Use mission as a filtering strength
Show space visually to reduce friction
Key takeaway:
Well-structured rental pages reduce back-and-forth by making expectations, community values, and space/price clarity visible earlier.
Deep Talk with the Stakeholder
Then, to better understand ongoing challenges, I met with Jeff, WtC’s Event Manager, who handles all rental communication.
In a 1.5-hour conversation, we walked through his end-to-end workflow to understand what works well and where friction occurs (Comparative Approach).
Client Interview Insights
Of course, previous perspectives and needs all come from stakeholders. Clients’ perspective research and clients’ experience can help us understand important pain points (this is necessary!).
Three deep talks with previous collaborators with WtC.
System Synthesis
Current Journey & Opportunity Signals
To synthesize insights from stakeholders and clients, I mapped the current end-to-end rental journey and noted recurring friction points and opportunity signals across stages.
Key System Breakdowns
Why the current rental system repeatedly creates friction
While individual issues surfaced at different stages, the breakdowns stem from a few systemic patterns across the entire rental journey.
From Systemic Breakdown to Design Direction
These breakdowns revealed one core need:
the rental system must centralize information early, shift decisions upstream, and capture outcomes as reusable system memory.
Solution
A 5-Step Rental System Redesign
Based on the systemic breakdowns identified earlier, I designed a 5-step rental service system that moves critical decisions earlier, reduces staff coordination cost, and turns each event into reusable system knowledge. Here are the 5 steps:
System Implementation Overview (Internal + Client Flow)
Illustrates how the 5-step system works end-to-end across roles.
Design and Iteration
Why the current rental system repeatedly creates friction
While individual issues surfaced at different stages, the breakdowns stem from a few systemic patterns across the entire rental journey.
From Systemic Breakdown to Design Direction
These breakdowns revealed one core need:
the rental system must centralize information early, shift decisions upstream, and capture outcomes as reusable system memory.