Lee & Associates
Role
Lead designer
Deliverables
Audit, Research, UX/UI, Dev hand-off
Team
Yuriy Matso, Technical Project Manager
Abbas Vajihi, Developer
Overview & problem
Imagine you're a real estate agent spending 1-2 hours generating a property list report for your clients. That must be mind-numbing, right?
Through their Director of Operations, we learned real estate agents hacked their way to creating client-ready property reports in their legacy, CRM system. I was brought in to simplify the flow between Database Search and Create a Report.
But what is Lee & Associates?
Lee & Associates is a commercial real estate company that helps clients find the perfect property for their business needs.
Database Search (before): Input filters to search the database
Search Results (before): Select properties to generate a report
Export modal (before): Export a pdf report
Goals
Real estate agents want to embrace their internal CRM system without having to hack their way through it.
Reduce complexity, time and # of steps to enter Search parameters.
Increase user adoption of the new Search database.
MVP
Focus Areas
After many, many Zoom calls with the Director of Operations and auditing their legacy system, these main features combined 3 existing pages into one, turning Search into a dynamic all-in-one database.
Optimize search results to include city radius
Enable Save Search parameters
Improve Create Report visibility
Design
Idea 1: Filter Ranges
The legacy system originally displayed empty text field boxes with no clear hierarchy or categorization. Taking inspiration from Zillow, I introduced filters with a min and/or max range. This reduced the effort in manual typing.
The client liked the idea, but stated agents would still prefer to have an option to type in specific numbers as part of their workflow.
Idea 2: Combo Filters + Text Fields ✅
Revising the earlier ideation, I added a Combo Filter creating hierarchy and grouping for similar parameters. Additionally, all Text Field Filters have descriptive placeholders indicating user action.
Redesigned search parameters contain grouped and categorized filters based on their dependencies with one another.
Other features
Create a Report
Previously, Create a Report was tucked away in a drop down menu found only in search results. Now its placed on the toolbar in the main search page, a clear call-to-action when the agent is ready to export.
Solution: Apply a template and export your report in 3 clicks.
Before: Export feature hidden in a drop down menu. Like playing Where's Waldo 🔍
Takeaways
This redesign required a lot time spent on auditing up front. In order to minimize ambiguity, I prioritized meeting with the client to define their problem space and what they liked/disliked about their current system.
A few learnings from this project:
Make the sessions with your client count
Without real estate knowledge or prior knowledge on how to navigate their system, I came to every meeting prepared with questions, concepts, and went through iterations in detail to make sure the client was aligned. I was always learning something new about their legacy datebase.
The Search & Report Export feature is just one part of Lee & Associates' CRM tool. There were many technical questions asked such a feasibility in data migration or starting from scratch. If I had more resources available, I would have liked to run user tests with the agents themselves.