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01 Project Overview
Project type
Personal project
Industry
Real Estate
User & Audience
The user audience starts with the buyers and extends to sellers and realtors.
Duration
2 Months
Role & Responsibilities
UX Design
Design Strategy
Brand Mark Design & Style Guide
Prototyping
Device Tools
iMac
Design Tools
Adobe Illustrator
Figma
Project Overview
02 Backstory & Problem
User Research for House real estate app
About real estate online
So you're in the market to buy a home. You jump on the popular go to real estate site or app and search for the home of your dreams. You find it! You make contact and then you learn some devastating inaccuracies in the home information. Now you're back to square one.
Another interesting irony, was learning the lack of support for realtors on these real estate sites. They feel pushed away without getting a fare chance at creating rapport. The real estate sites are leaning more towards home owners selling their own homes.
Backstory
03 Discovery
User Research
I began with a quantitative approach to my research. I learned that 95% of home buyers use the internet to search for homes, but only 54% of home buyers choose the internet as their first step in the home buying process. Maybe the remainder 46% prefer driving around the neighborhood of their choosing in hopes of finding their dream home for sale. Or maybe they are aware of the three major challenges online real estate sites are having, according to The Cory Lauer Group and many more agencies consistently publishing the same results.
I dove in deeper in my study as a buyer performing a Pilot test on three different real estate sites and ended up in a qualitative research. A couple of the sites stated a 63% accuracy on their property evaluations and the third one shared how they were the most accurate real estate site out there. I moved forward and entered my interest and received a list of property options on all three sites. Then I contacted ten sellers who ranged from actual home owners to realtors. A few questions later I learned most home owners selling their own homes never sold a home before, so the lack of education was a challenge in its self. Also, realtors felt that real estate platforms were tailored more toward home owners, forcing realtors to hang their hats or get creative and pretend to be the home owner but really the representative the owner when listing the property for sale. Either way, I learned why the 46% were staying clear from the internet as their first step in the home buying process.
“A few questions later I learned most homeowners selling their own homes never sold a home before, so the lack of education was a challenge.”
Home Owner Questionnaire
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Is the home still for sale?
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(If sold or pending) Why is it still showing for sale?
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Why are you pricing the home 10% more or under the estimated value?
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What is your experience selling a property?
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Why do you prefer selling the property yourself instead of the traditional way via representation?
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Does selling your own home make you feel unconcerned or overwhelmed with the task of selling a property?
Realtor Questionnaire
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Why are you pricing the home 10% more or under the estimated value?
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What has your experience been like on this real estate site?
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(If good) Are you happy with adapting to the industry changes
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(If bad) How does this effect your career future?
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Do you think home owners know what they are doing when selling their own homes?
Discovery
04 Pain Points
Research findings \ 10 Participants
Buyer
Pain Point 1
Home buyers felt frustrated after learning a property was either pending a sale or off the market, yet showing for sale.
Proposed Solutions
Automated seller notifications requesting updates or status changes to their listing.
Home Seller
Pain Point 2
Home owners felt a bit overwhelmed when selling their property due to the lack of real estate education.
Proposed Solutions
Automated emails with links to how to sell a property, based on their experience level.
Realtor
Pain Point 3
Real estate agents felt uninvited to online real estate sites. It was tailored for home owners selling their own homes and pushing realtors out of the way.
Proposed Solutions
Invite real estate agents to represent their services and experience to home owners looking to sell their homes via an introduction/profile.
Pain Points
05 Personas
Quantitative Personas
While conducting a statistical market research, I identified 3 user types. The home buyer, the for sale by owner (fsbo), and the realtor. Scroll through the persona types to view.
Personas
How can we create a user supported real estate app with the buyer, owner, and realtor in mind, in order to have interactions within the app.
Solutions
06 Solutions
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Automated seller notifications requesting updates or status changes to their listing.
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Automated emails with links to how to sell a property, based on their experience level.
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Invite real estate agents to represent their services and experience to home owners looking to sell their homes via an introduction/profile.
07 User Flow
After learning the pain points of users on other real estate sites it was clear a solution needed to be created. Listed below are the 3 user types and the pathways leading to their needs and interest.
User action
Page

Buyer flow
Owner/Seller flow
Agent flow
User Flow
08 Sketches
The initial sketch idea
Due to my background in graphic design, as the information pours , an image begins to form. Blurry at first and clearer as we learn more and more of the product at hand. For instance, most real estate sites shoot straight to the inventory page without truly knowing a zip code of the area. I figured we could at least get you in the neighborhood and learn more from there.
The sketch below identifies the 3 user types: The Buyer, The Seller, and the Agent. From here the site opens up to the desired path the user chooses to go.

Sketches
09 Wireframing
Mid-fi wireframes
Once the user flow and app sketches were completed, I moved forward in designing the initial grayscale wireframes for 3 user type paths.
Buyer flow

Home

Zip Code

Inventory

Property Details

Interest
Seller / Owner flow

Home

Zip Code

Selling Options

Agent List

Agent Details

Owner Login

Owner Sign Up

Owner Profile

Property Listing Images

Property Features

Listing Details

Community Details
Agent flow

Home

Agent Login

Zip Code

Selling Options

Agent Sign Up

Agent Profile

Property Listing Images

Property Features

Listing Details

Community Details
Wireframing
10 Brand Style Guide
A style guide was created detailing the look and feel of the brand mark and its supporting forms of communication. Below is basic style guide used to carry a consistent form of design throughout the app.
Brand Mark

Primary Colors
Font
Arial
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
0123456789
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789
Supporting Colors
Style Guide
12 Prototype
High fidelity
Once the user research, the solutions, user flow, and style guide had been completed, we move forward to high fidelity mobile surfaces. The mobile screens below highlight the core paths to the pain point solutions shared earlier. No further development continued just due to the fact that this was a personal project. However I did enjoy the complex thinking that went into the learnings of each type of user and the paths they would take throughout their experience on this listing app.








Prototype
Final Thoughts
13 Final Thoughts
The fact that this was a personal project didn't diminish my efforts in trying to solve a current existing problem with published real estate sites and apps. I believe the solutions provided gets us closer to making users happy but still requires more research. I share this because while conducting my study I found myself going down a rabbit hole of pain points that didn't make the cut (sort of speak) and quite honestly became overwhelmed with the load of work before me. I would've had to consult with more researchers to find an even better solution then the one I came up with. None the less, the project was fun and incredibly interesting. I am fortunate to have friends in the real estate industry to learn all that I did to perform this personal study but further research is most definitely required.
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