Design Challenge:
Design sprint for a fictional Craigslist Real Estate App
Objectives
This is a quick exercise on my process on tackling a design challenge.
Here I practice a few of my skills on how I:
- Empathize with users and identify their needs
- Provide a solution that meets business needs
- Illustrate effective interaction design solutions
- Communicate why the design solution is successful
Timeline
Craigslist Real Estate App Challenge
1 Hour: Review the product landscape. Gather inspiration by visiting the Craigslist website, third-party Craigslist mobile apps, or other competitive services that provide an analogous experience.
1 Hour: Identify Betty’s core activities on Craigslist. Identify recommended capabilities for supporting Betty in a mobile Craigslist app. Select one of these capabilities to explore in more detail.
2-4 Hours: Convey Betty’s overall experience. Consider Betty’s professional needs, Craigslist’s goals as a company, and any other relevant factors. Create a visually represented screen flow
Design Brief
The company’s primary revenue stream comes from real estate brokers who pay a fee for each listing they post on the website. They want to build an app that will make it easier for brokers to post and manage listings.
For the initial release, Craigslist wants to target their most active real estate market, New York City, where speed is crucial and apartments are always in high demand. Research shows that brokers in this area would use the app if it reduced the time it took them to list an apartment and manage responses from prospective tenants.
Intro
As one of the biggest classified advertisements website, Craigslist provides a platform where real estate brokers can post and share property listings. Craigslist can also be a valuable asset to both renters and buyers. By utilizing a simple and intuitive user interface, renters and buyers can sort through different properties to find ones that match their budgets, preferences, and needs.
User - Brokers
What do they need to do?
2
1
3
Create/Edit posts
Add photos
Title
Description
Location
Map
Price
Tags
Make appointments
Group posts
Contact/Sort clients
Phone call
Send/receive messages
Share texts to multiple groups
Mark messages
Sort messages
Organize messages
Search messages with filters
Notifications
New matches
New messages
Instant cancellation notifications
Persona
Betty the Broker plans to list 15 different apartments on Craigslist this weekend. They vary in price and are concentrated in three Manhattan neighborhoods: the Upper West Side, Chelsea, and the Financial District. Using the new mobile app, Betty can expect to receive about 1,000 responses a day.
Empathy Map
Think & Feel
How to easily and quickly post a property?
How to get more attentions from clients?
How to meet clients more efficiently?
How to select the best client for this deal?
How to share a message to multiple clients?
How to organize responses?
See
Brief introduction to clients
Voice messages
Price negotiation
Details of apartments
Ask requirements from clients
Hear
Say & Do
Housing info from other brokers
Questions about housing
Appointments to see the houses
Feedback from clients
Make new posts
Select and reply responses
Share same messages to multiple clients
Make appointments to see the houses
Recommend similar housing
User Scenario
Make new posts - Form
Competitive Analysis
- Overcomplicated design
- Unnecessary and disorienting screen changes
- Overwhelming masses of text that require scrolling to read
- No visual emphasis given to the information hierarchy
New Form
- Categorizing of content into sections to clarify the hierarchy
- Replaced unstable checking box with modern switches for yes/no options
- Added a tagging process to aid in searching results
Contacts
Housing
Additional
Create and customize lists
- Lists allow brokers to create and share groups of properties
- Gallery view allows easy browsing for brokers
- Lists offer simplified and sorted gallery information at a glance
- Previously made lists are still readily available via drop down menu
Lists
Browsing by galleries
Browsing by lists
Create and customize lists
- Quick access to list actions, sending, marking, and deleting, are available via left swipe
- Separate sending menu offers recent contacts, search function, and share options
- Brokers are able to easily share lists and property info with multiple clients
Craigslist Real Estate App, UI, UX, IOS
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