About

HoatzinHome is a modern HOA management platform I designed and built as a side project. The goal was simple: make the experience of managing and living in an HOA community feel less like dealing with bureaucracy and more like a well-designed app you'd actually want to use. The platform covers the full surface area of HOA life — violation tracking, community communications, document management, and announcements — all in a clean, dark-themed UI.

What makes this project unique isn't just the product — it's how it was built. I used a combination of Claude, Cursor, and other modern AI tools to design, write, and ship both a fully functioning marketing website and the application itself. As a designer who has always worked at the intersection of design and front-end code, these tools fundamentally changed what I could produce independently.

Visit the live site →

How AI Made This Possible

Using Claude and Cursor together, I was able to act as both the designer and the engineering team simultaneously. Here's how that looked in practice:

1. Design to code, fast. I designed components in Figma, then used Cursor with Claude to translate those designs directly into working React components. What would have taken days of back-and-forth with a developer happened in hours.

2. Claude as a thinking partner. Before writing a single line of code or drawing a single screen, I used Claude to pressure-test the product logic — user flows, edge cases, naming conventions, and information architecture. Claude helped me see gaps I would have missed and move faster with more confidence.

3. Cursor for implementation. Cursor's AI-powered code editor let me write and refactor full features by describing what I wanted in plain English. I could stay in design thinking mode while the code took shape around me.

4. Marketing site in a day. The marketing website was designed and built entirely with AI assistance — copywriting, layout, responsiveness, and deployment — in a fraction of the time traditional methods would require.

5. Iteration without fear. Because the cost of making changes was so low, I iterated more aggressively. AI tools removed the hesitation that normally comes with "this will take too long to rebuild." That freedom directly improved the final product.

The takeaway: AI tools don't replace design thinking — they amplify it. When you combine strong UX instincts with tools like Claude and Cursor, a single designer can ship a production-quality product end-to-end. That's not a small shift. That's a fundamental change in what's possible.

Features

Dashboard — At-a-glance summary of violations, messages, and documents across your HOA.

Violations — Homeowners and board members can log, track, and manage HOA violations with status tracking and address lookup.

Communication — Direct messaging and community-wide announcements built into a clean chat interface.

Documents — A central place for HOA governing documents, meeting minutes, and community resources.