UX Design Case Study
Imopedia (2021)
Role
UX Designer
Team
3 Persons
Industry
Real Estate
Product
Mobile App
Year
2021
Duration
6 months
The house-hunting process can be a stressful experience. This is especially true when it’s your first time buying a home. There’s a lot of money on the line, and unfamiliarity can create stress for the first-time homebuyer. Then there are the emotional considerations about lifestyle issues such as commute times, school quality, and neighbourhood.
Product vision
An app that allows people to find a property to buy, rent or sell effortlessly and trustworthy.
Long term goal: becoming the first option when people want to find a house.
Discovered user problems
One of the biggest challenges people encounter in an apartment hunt is a lack of trust. Incomplete/misleading listings are a prevalent issue when looking for a home. Visiting many properties to find the right one is both irritating and time-consuming. For agents, sharing ads and searches from different databases is cumbersome. Unfortunately, a few bad apples also ruin their reputation.
Outcome
Create an app that helps people find faster and effortless new homes and agents to be more effective to raise the number of sales and raise the platform’s income.
Brief
The number of mobile users increased on the site, and the company wants to offer a more tailored experience and launch their first mobile app.
Business goal
To become the premier platform for agents
Users goal
To efficiently find the right property to call home.
Business opportunity
The increased trust of users in agents leads to a shorter time till acquisition. In addition, it aids the company in expanding its influence among real estate brokers, making the Imopedia platform the preferred tool, resulting in higher revenue.
How might we
Create an app that improves trust between users and agents so that users find their next home efficiently.
Create an app that improves efficiency of the agents in communicating with clients so that the time between first contact and signed deal is reduced thereby allowing them to close more deals.
Role
UX Designer
Year
2021
Duration
6 months
My responsibilities
From research through analysis and design,
I was involved in every step of the process.
I was involved in every step of the process.
Team
Razvan Petre - UI Designer,
Razvan Munteanu – Product Owner,
Andrei Sandu – Developer FE
Razvan Munteanu – Product Owner,
Andrei Sandu – Developer FE
Methodology
Design Thinking
Discovery and Definition
Our first step was to determine what we needed to learn and who could provide us with the necessary information.
We began by interviewing our stakeholders, agents and multiple focus groups and interviews with users.
We looked at the competition, Playstore and forum reviews. This data allowed us to paint a clearer picture of the issues users and agents have to face daily and build user profiles for further research.
Following that, efforts were made to map existing user experiences in order to identify other pain points and specific development opportunities.
Because of the constraints, we concentrated only on 2 personas, George the buyer and Ioana, the agent.
78%
People are buying to move in
92%
Had to deal with a misleading ad
59%
Agents that are women
Stakeholder meeting
Key insights:
Two different types of users: agents and buyers/sellers
Use the features of the web platform and add only the best value features.
KPI: Increased user retention on the app.
Agents meeting
Agents profile: Independent and agency employed agents
Key insights: Needs a system for discovering & sharing offers more efficiently
Technological advanced tools support (3d visualisation software)
Users meeting
Users profile: They have been through the process of buying in the last six months
Key insights:
Trouble obtaining relevant information and keeping track of everything, including the properties they liked,
correspondence with agents, paperwork, and expenses.
Many misleading ads and agents lead to a loss of trust.
Hypotheses
We came up with three hypotheses to ensure product adoption based on the discovery research findings. These included a rating system for ads, a rating system for agents, and the group’s system.
Technical complexity, potential business, and user efficacy values were used to list and map the features. The mobile app will include the most impactful features.
Wireframes
of key screens and features.
Validation: internal / cognitive walkthrough
High fidelity prototype
For in-depth user validation.
Validation: users / cognitive walkthrough
Validation
Usability testing has been done on multiple occasions, using batches of 5 users to validate our hypotheses and test different features.
We used either the Lookback app or in-person meetings.
The feedback received has allowed us to correct different assumptions before each iteration. For example, we changed from heart to a 3-star rating.
We also recorded a decrease in the time necessary for agents to share different offers and saved searches, making them so more efficient in their work.
UI & Design system
We finished the first version of the UI, and to keep the visual consistency across site and mobile, we also built a design system.
KPI
We began soft-launching the first version of the app and began tracking the 7d retention rate. We saw a 17 % increase.
Outcome
Based on the results from our fusability testing, we’ve seen some promising trends. Users are experiencing less frustrations and staying with the app for a longer period of time. We’re also seeing higher levels of user engagement (comments) which validates our hypotheses.
Our next area of focus could be cooperation with financial institutions, notary processes, value of property and rental price.