UX Case Study
High Five Properties Website Redesign
Project Overview
Connecting to the local community can be tough, but Lisa Long, owner of High Five Properties, has always made it one of her top priorities. Lisa is doing it all: business admin, content creation, listing homes, and so much more. She has a site for her rentals and new home listings for Portland, but it has limited capabilities and is not as responsive as it used to be. She is needing her site redesigned to perform better and address potential renters, home buyers/sellers, and property manager needs better.
Time Frame
80 – 100 hrs over 3 months
Define
Problem
The current site’s WordPress theme is no longer maintained by its developers, limiting website responsiveness and customization and making it harder to update the site. Additionally, different user types have not been considered for the flow and function of the site.
Project Phases
I split the project into two phases to accommodate for the needs of the business owner while working within DesignLab’s time constraints. Phase one focused on completing the requirements for research, ideation, and development for DesignLab’s capstone project. Phase two concentrated on completing business owner edits and actually launching the site.
Research
Research Questions
- Find out how users found their current home, property manager, or rental
- Determine if there are any reasons users enjoyed or
did not enjoy shopping for a home, working with a realtor, or employing a property manager - Identify why users choose or stuck with their realtor or property manager
Research Methods and Persona
Secondary Research
Competitive Analysis: Determine strengths and friction points of other property management and realtor sites and apps. It is important to figure out what their assumptions of users are from their features and design choices.
Primary Research
1:1 Interviews: Discuss with individuals that have recently shopped for, rented, bought, or rented out a home to get insight into their motivations and pain points during the process as well as the features that helped or hindered their experience.
Competitive Analysis
There are quite a few property management and real estate businesses for the Portland market with a variety of similar services offered. A competitive analysis allows for direct and indirect comparisons of these existing businesses’ online offerings.
The shared positive attributes to keep in mind:
- Organized and defined user flows for each end-user
- Professional, well-thought-out content that pertained to each end user’s goals
- Responsive sites
- Easy to reach out for assistance/questions and easy to follow processes
1:1 Initial Interviews
1:1 user interviews allowed for a more relaxed and in depth discussion about participant’s experiences with property managers and realtors. Overall, participants approached finding a new home with anticipation and excitement and felt a great amount of annoyance with misleading or old listings, overly complicated rental or buying processes, or unresponsive, impersonal realtors and property managers.
It is interesting to note that all participants started shopping for potential new homes using applications like Zillow, Redfin, etc-the majority of interviewees used or relied on word-of-mouth recommendations to find their current homes. Home buyers / sellers, in particular, relied heavily on the knowledge and resources that their realtor brought with them.
Additionally, the websites of the realtor or property manager helped convince the home buyer or renter that this property manager or realtor was worth using. They usually checked the websites to substantiate the claims made by the realtor or property manager under consideration. It also helped solidify the business’s priorities.
“I went through all those websites and nothing that was listed was actually available.
-– Participant 4
Remote Interview
Defined Persona
The information collected from the initial interviews and competitive analysis lead to the creation of multiple personas. The persona archetypes are Newbie Neighbors Home Buyers, Meticulous Mover Renter, and Secondary Income Source Property Manager.
Design Moving Forward
The user interviews and comparative analysis helped figure out the configuration of user needs, motivations, processes, and pain points with current realtors and property managers. The focus moving forward was building clearer, better avenues for users to move along.
The user needed to feel comfortable enough to reach out to Lisa to move forward with a rental, selling or buying a home, and using their property management services.
Ideate
The initial research from both primary and secondary resources helped guide the process of formatting project personas, which in turn redefined the functions and flows of the site. The next focus was on outlining how High Five Properties’ new responsive site would be organized to better suite each type of user.
Sitemap
Creation of High Five Properties’ sitemap came from outlining the site’s needed features and pages, i.e. the feature roadmap, and from the analysis of potential user flows from all user types.
User & Task Flows
The main personas built out need to use the site for very different reasons. For example, rental or property owners didn’t need to look over listings but did need to discuss their specific situation and property management requirements. The user flow actions for a home buyer and a renter differed but did share the core necessities for finding a home:
- Perusing available properties
- Communicating with or reaching out to High Five Properties
- Understanding of processes of applying for a home
The rental process was the main focus of the user flows due to the initial interview had with Lisa, the owner of High Five Properties, since she had stated she usually has more rental listings than home listings.
Potential rentor has found the site from an outside referring application. They are shopping around for a rental, applying for a property, and setting up a viewing.
Potential rentor has found the site from an outside referring application. They are wanting to set up a viewing for an available rental.
Branding
A balance needed to be struck between the vibrant, hand-drawn art of Tim Root and the clean user interface needed for the site. So, icons, dividers, and page backgrounds were created in the style of the artist to accomplish a more cohesive feel.
Wireframes and High Fidelity Mockups
After getting all of the basic pages laid out I went to work doing preliminary sketches for the landing page’s filtering and call-to-actions.
Wireframes were based on the key pages that would be important to the user flow of searching for different homes and reaching out to the business owner to see listings, set up viewings for homes, start the home application process, and reach out to the business owner. These of course changed due to preliminary peer review.
After the main screens were plotted out into wireframes, the main modules, components, and pages were updated to reflect the styling curated earlier in the design process.
Test & Iterate
After setting up interviews, finishing the mobile prototype, and running through the chosen interview questions- it was time for the actual UX test.
Info gathered would be critical to checking out site interactions and user flows.
UX Testing
Participants were asked to complete tasks remotely while having their responses and screens recorded. The hope was to determine which parts of the site worked well and which parts needed further iteration.
Test Goals
- Checking on ease of finding information and use of the site
- The overall feel of the site- is site friendly and different enough to meet stakeholder requirements while conveying professionalism and trustworthiness?
- Does the site lend itself to having the user reach out to Lisa to set up meetings for viewings/interviews, send applications for rentals, or other renter requests?
- Can first-time home buyers and renters find accurate breakdowns of the buying, selling, and/or rental process to be informed?
Participants
- Age range 31 – 39
- Participants: 4-6
- Psychographics (age/income): Varying
- Preferred qualities: recently applied for a rental or bought/sold home
Tasks
Setup: Remember back to when you were recently looking for a home.
- Invite users to look around the homepage of the site and think out loud while considering the look, feel, and the user’s expectations. (Goal 2)
- Can you tell and show me what you would do first on this site or where you might go? Please let me know what you are thinking as you go through this process.(Goal 1 & 3)
- Say you are in need of info on how High Five Properties works with you to get a new apartment or house. Where might you look for that information and why? Was this kind of information you were expecting or would need- why or why not? (Goal 4)
- For RENTER only: Can you show me how you would apply for an apartment? (Goal 3)
- For HOME BUYER/SELLER only: Can you show me how you might reach out to your realtor for an interview? (Goal 3)
Task Completion
All tasks were completed 100% with little to no help required. The homepage was changed after a couple of interviews to see if a split screen call to action for home owners and renters would help clarify user flow which way renters and home buyers needed to navigate. A welcome message was also added to confirm what High Five Properties is and has to offer right away. The change immediately cleared up any ambiguity users had had about for whom the site was created.
Original Testing Layout
Original layout for the homepage with full-width slider and collection of available homes “for rent” and “for sale” underneath.
Updated Testing Layout
The full-width slider changed to a half and half call-to-action section for more apparent user paths. An introduction of High Five Properties section was placed below the new split-screen call to action sections. This was implemented after the first two initial interviews.
Reflection & Iterations
Overall the users gave positive reviews for the look and feel of the site and interpreted the brand as inherently Portland and quirky.
Tier One Issues to Resolve
- Simplify homepage user flow choices- this was completed after initial two interviews with positive results
- Create contact form specific for home buyers, sellers, and home owners needing property management- the form should show all contact info for the business
- Make it clearer how to apply for an apartment
- Show more info about why High Five Properties is the company to use for realtor and property management services
- Simplify call to actions for processes
Tier Two Issues to Resolve
An actual image of Lisa, the business owner, is needed on the site. Home buyers interviewed commented that they would like to see an actual image of the person with which they would be working.
“If I was coming to the website to look for [if] this is a realtor or company that I was wanting to work with, then I would want more upfront about the company itself. Who works here? Who would I be working with – does Lisa have a profile? I’d like to see a picture and bio that’s important to me.”
– Buyer Interview 1
The business owner has been resistant to this since she enjoys the cartoon versions of herself on the site. This will be discussed in the final version prior to her new site launch.
Before Redesign
High Five Properties Website before redesign.
After Redesign
High Five Properties Website after redesign.
Updated final app screens showing updates based on user feedback from UX testing. Pictured from left to right: CTA for services offered; New individual property page for renters; new split CTA homepage for home buyers and renters; getting to know the business owner section; updated contact form for home buyers
Project Next Steps
Phase two research for further automation and launch site after stakeholder review and approval.
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