Refining realtor workflows
How can we help real estate agents connect better with their clients and offices while in the field?
i did
Product Management
User Experience
User Interface
duration
Oct 2016 - May 2018
PropSpace is a real estate SAAS product developed by JRD Group. Headquartered in Dubai, PropSpace is a market leader in the Middle East, proving to be a powerful tool in the hands of real estate professionals in the region.
The Challenge
Users of PropSpace are of three types: Agents, their Managers, and Admins (administrative staff). During our routine training sessions held both in-house and on-site, we discovered that admins spent more time updating data for agents than they did focusing on marketing, approval and other tasks. We needed to work on a solution that could alter this behavior by enabling agents to efficiently input their data while out and about, which would in turn reduce workload on admins.
It was important for us to simplify the existing interface and give agents only the tools they needed while not at the office.
‘propspace go’ took off in OCTOBER 2016 once we presented our findings to concerned stakeholders.
First Steps
We conducted user interviews, focusing on agent users. Agents spend most of their day traveling between viewings, and found it both cumbersome and inefficient to input their data on the PropSpace web app. We identified three major pain points:
High Cognitive Load
Speed
Inadequate Mobile Interface
Based on these inferences, we proposed the design and development of a mobile application specifically built for Agent users.
having access to our top-notch support team and a great rapport with many of our users paid off.
Content Audit
With this new product goal ahead of us, we needed to get a clearer picture of the existing information architecture, and identify which features or sections were not necessarily required by agents.
A content audit was conducted, and the answer was immediately clear. Nearly 60% of the features listed in the audit was not required for Agents to complete their field work.
auditing helped us identify features causing increased cognitive load.
Defining the Scope
To narrow the scope of requirements for the mobile application, we studied user flows and employed task analysis.
Our research identified that agents primarily needed to be able to do the following:
An easy way to update their stock of listings that didn’t require them to use a laptop or desktop
To get notified about viewings and open houses
To have access to their contact and lead information, including lead status
To quickly share listing information and marketing materials with contacts and leads
The information architecture began to take shape:
Home - A dashboard style overview of agent’s stock count and leads in progress
Listings - A card based screen displaying the agent’s properties for rent and sale
Leads - Card based screen displaying agent’s lead information
Contacts - A directory of all the agent’s contacts
Calendar - A simple calendar
Activity Feed - An infinite feed to keep track of changes to the agent’s data
Support - Email/Phone Support
User Profile - Changes to agent name, mobile number or email
Settings
Notifications
Remember Login
Brainstorming sessions and workshops enabled our teams to come up with a well-defined and realistic scope while keeping in mind technical and design limitations.
Wireframes and Prototyping
We took these requirements to the drawing board, and came up with several iterations, making our way from simple representations on paper and pencil to wireframes and finally, high-fidelity prototypes in various tools such as Balsamiq, Adobe XD and Sketch.
Throughout this process, we collected information from agents using card sorting and surveys to refine our own iterations. One specific area where the impact of this exercise stood out was the navigation. The early wireframes and prototypes had a typical ‘hamburger’ navigation button due to the 9 features that we wanted to include in the app. Our card sorting results indicated that it would be better to use a Navigation bar with the four most used features, and the remaining to be categorized under ‘More’.
prototyping allows me to experiment and validate my findings while also pushing me to be creative.
Feedback
Once the high-fidelity prototypes began to resemble our vision for an MVP, we decided to build a working beta using Apple’s TestFlight platform and invite a pilot group of 20 agent users to use the product and give us feedback.
This meant agents could try out the app using their own data and use it in real-world scenarios - something that could not be done with the high-fidelity prototypes. This also helped us identify several new requirements and iron out certain edge cases.
Here’s the gist of what they were saying:
I like that I can now see at a glance how my stock looks, and what my day has in store for me
I like that I can easily find information about a lead I’m about to meet.
I like that I no longer have to use a laptop to update listing/lead/contact information
I wish I could share property brochures with clients using the app on WhatsApp and other chat applications, not just email.
I wish I had access to comparative data so as to inform clients of how the property they are interested in is priced
During meetings, I wish there were a way to make it easier to show clients information while restricting sensitive content such as the unit no. or property owner’s contact information.
Based on this feedback, we implemented and updated a few things:
Sharing of property brochures using Share Sheets on both iOS and Android
We added a section called Market Intelligence for users to view comparative market data
We added a ‘Presentation Mode’ for tablet devices so users could easily hand over devices to clients to browse through property information, without having to worry about them seeing confidential property information.
Over the first few rounds of this process, the feedback was definitely becoming more positive, as the agents felt we had addressed several concerns and they were able to use the app in a majority of their use cases.
Due to resource constraints, our engineer built the app using Appcelerator, a javascript platform that enabled us to create native mobile apps from a single codebase.
Alpha Release
With the last round of iterations, and our QA team working tirelessly to identify bugs and ensure a stable release, we finally felt confident to release the app on the App and Play stores. We made a few final tweaks to the UI so users would be wowed by the new interface and experience, in contrast to what they were using on the PropSpace web app thus far.
nothing beats release days because the feeling of achievement after months of intense effort is 🔥
What’s next?
We sent marketing emails. Our support teams and account managers got in touch with agents, their managers and admin staff. Within a day of release, 5,000+ agents were using the app. Around 1,500+ manager and admin users were on it too! The response was great!
Of course, our work wasn’t going to end there. We would get new feature requests, bug fixes and improvements to work on. The path ahead would be clearer, and we celebrated with cocktails at Nobu.