Jai Rangwani's most recent creation Interior Hunt is very different from his last. His previous claim to fame was the Tunnel Trouble 3-D app, a game that involves steering a ship through a series of virtual tunnels, loops, hoops and obstacles. The fast-paced, physics-based app went down a treat, with more than 100,000 registered downloads.
Rangwani's latest venture, Interior Hunt, is slightly less high-octane. Having completed a bachelor of science in gaming development at Florida's Full Sail University, the techie returned two-and-a-half years ago to Dubai, where he was born and brought up. While he was initially preoccupied with designing all manner of apps, he was also keen to venture beyond the gaming sphere – preferably into something web and search-related.
Rangwani identified a particular opportunity in Dubai's burgeoning property sector and came up with the concept for a search portal called BobHunts.com. "We had the idea to create a unique and one-of-a-kind search portal that focused on property and interiors," he explains. "It would be very social-network-based, so you could like, rate and comment on properties, which is new for a search portal here."
The site is ready but not yet live. Along the way, Rangwani and his team realised that trying to address both property and interiors in one fell swoop was overly ambitious. They decided, instead, to refocus their efforts and to create a search portal dedicated entirely to the UAE’s interior-design sector. “We realised that including both properties and interiors was a huge task, so we decided to first focus on Interior Hunt and to do that in a very professional way.”
The fruit of their labours was launched just over two weeks ago and is being touted as “the UAE’s largest interiors search portal”. Rangwani and his team have spent the last two months pounding the phones, creating a database of interior-design-related companies, services and products. “It’s a Pinterest for interiors in the UAE,” he says.
There are already over 1,000 companies represented on the portal. The succinctly designed home page presents two main options: Interiors and Products. In the Interiors section, you can search for companies and services (ranging from space planning, carpentry and upholstery to joinery and engineering). There is also a section dedicated to furniture and product companies, outdoor and landscape services, and “other services”, which includes everything from movers and packers to insurance and pest-control companies.
There is also a list of UAE-based interior-design companies, with a detailed rundown of each brand’s areas of expertise, as well as contact details and examples of projects they have worked on. As with the original template for BobHunts, Interior Hunt has a very social element to it, with the opportunity for users to interact with the listed design companies, contacting them for advice or further information. This is the one element of the site that Rangwani hopes users will make full use of.
“It’s a good idea for users to ask more questions,” he reveals. “In the future, we will also have an experts’ panel – where users will be able to post questions on a wall and interior-design companies will respond. We ask users not to hesitate to take advantage of that opportunity.”
The Products section of the site is also bursting at the seams. There are 12 subsections, either based around a certain area of the home (living room, kitchen, bathroom etc), or categories such as lighting, dining and kids. Each of these sections is broken up into a further 12 subcategories, meaning that you can filter your search right down to the minutiae. At the moment, there is particularly strong representation on the site from companies such as Zen Interiors, Arteriors Zone and Falaknaz the Warehouse.
There is currently no way of filtering by price, only by product type, which might have been a useful feature for those who are decorating on a budget. But, as Rangwani points out, “we are not in the business of selling”. The aim is not to peddle products but to provide users with information on what is available on the market, as well as ideas and inspiration. Hence the blog section, which features before and after pictures of remodelling projects, tips and advice on things as far-ranging as grouting your tiles and hanging a frame, and a Celeb Nooks section showcasing the homes of the rich and famous.
Rangwani has a clear idea of the site’s target audience, “the average person looking for a good idea”, and has built Interior Hunt around that basic premise. It is simple, quick to load and straightforward to use – the stalwarts of good web design.
“Our priority with the design was to make it extremely clean and very easy to use. The best design, for me, is transparent,” says Rangwani. “There were technical challenges, of course; we wanted to make sure the pages load within one second, even though there were so many large images to process. There’s a lot of tech on here that’s new for Dubai. We are also working on an app, which is due out in the next couple of weeks and will be compatible with all Android and iOS platforms.”
As for Rangwani, does he miss the excitement of the gaming world? “For me, doing something new and creative is what’s important. Interior Hunt is the only search portal of its kind in the UAE. And it will allow people to design their homes in an easier and more cost-effective manner.”
sdenman@thenational.ae
