Union Square CASE STUDY: Union Square

World-class Hamilton development Union Square developer Fosters engaged Company-X to build a mobile application to provide a frictionless user experience for tenants wishing to connect with their teams and fellow tenants.

Union Square is a world-class office precinct in the heart of Hamilton.

Combining retail, office and lifestyle services, Union Square presents commercial investment opportunities for the discerning investor and premium a grade office in the Central Business District (CBD) for growing businesses.

The vision behind the new precinct is to create an exceptional place to be whether for work or pleasure, in the heart of one of New Zealand’s most progressive and growing cities.

Union Square offers over 23,000m2 of office space, spread over five buildings in the precinct. In addition, there is a world class business centre, retail space, community spaces and areas dedicated to the wellness of both residents and the local community.

Tenants include AA Insurance, Baker Tilly Staples Rodway, Bloxam Burnett and Oxham, Craigs Investment Partners and Rabobank.

Union Square developer Fosters' challenge was creating a connected community across a diverse range of tenants across five buildings in the Union Square precinct.

Union Square developer Fosters engaged Company-X to build an app to foster a community within Union Square.

Company-X team leader and senior developer Arno van Niekerk assembled an app development team, and a user experience foundations project began,

User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) consultant Briana Christey interviewed Union Square property developer Foster and tenants to understand the intent and business requirements.

Before design and development could start, five user personas were defined to anchor the process.

Briana interviewed prospective users to ascertain their goals and a wish list of app features.

From her requirements gathering and research, Briana clarified that the purpose of the app was to foster a community among tenants in Union Square. The team needed to design features that facilitated a sense of belonging for tenants (e.g., news, events, wellness hub bookings), as well as features that practical access and a sense of control over their work environment (e.g., booking meeting rooms, door access, maintenance notifications, booking visitor parking).

Briana created a short list of primary and secondary key features, with primary features destined for the home screen and secondary features for the secondary navigation hamburger menu.

Briana created some mock ups demonstrating ease of use with a sophisticated and sincere feel.

The next step was to build the app and test it with Union Square clients.

Union Square app users can order and pay for coffee and food from café vendors within the Union Square complex.

The app also includes the ability for Union Square to send notifications to some users across one or more tenants in the Union Square complex to keep them more informed about what’s going on within the precinct.

The ability for all some users to lodge maintenance requests is also built in.

The app development roadmap includes:

• The ability to book parking spaces before you arrive at Union Square.
• The ability to book meeting and conference rooms withing the Business Centre.
• The ability to unlock doors using Bluetooth and Gallagher Command Centre.

“It has been great working with Company X to bring our vision of an app that fosters a community within a business precinct to life. They have helped us through every step of the way and have delivered the app on time and budget.”

Foster Construction Group development manager Andrew Vincent