Research. Psychology. Design Systems.
"We Decide" vs
"You Decide"
The company had a new mission: become the technology leader of the real estate industry. Too many third party products built on antiquated systems meant there was an opportunity to provide a simplified solution that would better meet agent and broker needs
My Role
MAX/Center is an internal tool utilized by over 120K RE/MAX users monthly. After its launch in April 2019, my objective was to lead user research initiatives and identify how to deliver valuable content without compromising the accessibility of useful resources.
Results
32% increase in article opens related to content discovery, improved navigation to the News Feed, and differentiated content and customized functions.
In March 2019, the product development team launched a new tool, MAX/CENTER, exclusive to RE/MAX agents, brokers, staff and corporate employees. The web application would provide a single entry point for various tools and functionality meant to improve agent productivity and retention. Following the launch the product team transitioned from waterfall to agile development processes which enabled us to focus on smaller feature improvements and iterate more rapidly over time. One of the areas identified for improvement was a page dedicated to internal communications and resource distribution. There were nearly 10 stakeholders representing departments across marketing, communications, technology training, recruiting and retention and more. By getting everyone together in the same room for an interactive workshop, we could better understand how each department viewed their role in supporting users.
Stakeholders were asked to write out a list of user needs and vote on feature solutions that were most critical for the end user’s success. A heat map visualizing the prioritized features helped us narrow down our research design efforts.
Based on the initial feedback from stakeholders and because of the diverging opinions, we created two prototype concepts of an iterated News Feed called, “News & Resources,” where agents could access different types content and easily find what they needed. In one version, “We Decide,” the prototype displayed featured content based on what the business wanted to present to users and prioritized content discovery and engagement. The second version, “You Decide,” focused on search-ability and led the users to utilize categories relevant to their user type (e.g. agent, broker, staff) as well as a personalized feed of recommended content.
We realized that the stakeholders were split between two assumed end user needs - one where agents were leaning on the company for guidance, and one where users knew exactly what they wanted and wanted to find it independently
Based on the initial feedback from stakeholders and because of the diverging opinions, we created two prototype concepts of an iterated News Feed where agents could access different types content and easily find what they needed. In one version, “We Decide,” the prototype displayed featured content based on what the business wanted to present to users and prioritized content discovery and engagement. The second version, “You Decide,” focused on search-ability and led the users to utilize categories relevant to their user type (e.g. agent, broker, staff) as well as a personalized feed of recommended content.
We gathered feedback from agents and brokers via moderated remote usability sessions. There were limitations to the study, including low participant response rates and lack of design team resources that led us to complete the study with only 4 participants, each being presented with both versions of the prototype. We considered the results as preliminary findings, but knew we needed to continue our efforts before moving forward with development.
Current Feed where resources and articles utilize the same UI
"We Decide" Prototype focusing on featured content
"You Decide" Prototype providing categories & search
If Stakeholder assumptions differed by department, and the initial usability sessions required followup, we needed to connect with real users in the RE/MAX network by leveraging existing resources
I was itching to be a fly on the wall with an agent - I wondered how and where they spent their time, how they communicated and kept things organized and how RE/MAX technology played a role. As of 2019 there are 8,229 RE/MAX franchise offices worldwide, with some of the most successful offices located right in Denver, Colorado so we reached out to a few local offices to set up shadowing sessions. We knew that there would be differences between each offices and that Denver wouldn’t be representative of all franchises, but that it would provide a qualitative view of a handful of specific agent needs.
Partially seeking to validate existing assumptions and partially needing to start back at the drawing board, we used an ethnographic approach to shadow 8 users in their work environment.
Environments differed across each agent and office we shadowed.
We held a debriefing session to review the main takeaways and identify patterns between sessions based on pain points, organization strategies, task management, and application use.
Small offices were more loyal and reliant on RE/MAX for their success; whereas, larger offices with more experienced agents wanted independence and separation
We were starting to develop a better image of our end user and also realized the challenge, or danger rather, of designing to the average user. With differences observed across offices based on size, location, and market just within Denver we recognized the variability would only increase across the entire network and across individual end users. How could we present users with content the business wanted to provide while allowing user behavior to drive a personalized experience?
Personas were developed based on interviews, shadowing sessions and the empathy map session with stakeholders, but we wanted to make sure these didn’t restrict our solutions if market variations produced contradicting needs because one size does not fit all.
There were snags - some big, some small. MAX/Center and a handful of projects fell into a temporary blackhole as the product team was expanding, roles were shifting, and roadmaps were still being confirmed which meant that our team was juggling multiple projects and having to start and stop as things were being ironed out.
With a new product manager in tow, we were able to approach things with fresh eyes and clear leadership. "News & Resources", "News Feed", "Resources Page", were all conceptual attempts at testing stakeholder assumptions. We solved for the business need of featuring curated content on a new landing page, making room for us to improve the News Feed by differentiating resource content from article posts. And with another round of usability testing we aimed to identify additional pain points, update the UI and start getting it into production bit by bit.
News Feed
End User Pain Points
1
Lack of distinction between content type - posts that are news related look the same as resources that are available to download.
2
Inadequate search - users were observed to struggle with locating and using the scoped search and advanced filters.
Using the page title to filter by department and category offered little affordance to users.
Lastly, the global search was hard to detect due to location and absence of clarity.
3
Lack of distinction between content type - posts that are news related look the same as resources that are available to download.
News & Resources
Solutions
1
Clearly labeled and sectioned content by type with personalized suggestions with resources listed first to improve discoverability.
2
Differentiated components for a downloadable piece of content vs a news article.
3
Focus on the title and file type of a resource for better transparency and decision-making, resulting in a reduced cognitive load.
4
Improved scoped search representing a UI that better matches user mental models.
Visible global search with helper text positioned above the content on the page
Department and category filtering in a recognizable dropdown as well as easier access to advanced filters.
5
Reduced article image size to improve title scan-ability and update to the category labels from red to grey so they match an expected hierarchy.
6
Content type filtering to make it easier to search based on use case: task completion or content discovery.
Where does this leave mobile?
82% of users who visit MAX/Center are using a desktop device, with 16% on mobile, and a mere 2% on tablet. Based on our shadowing sessions, this was supported by our observation that resource management doesn’t happen on the fly as much as it does during office hours when the agent prefers to site at their laptop or desktop computer to complete multiple tasks at a time. However, we did learn that article consumption could happen in the office or out in the field, which warranted a better mobile experience for those wanting to read and share content. There were cases when an agent might want to share an article with their client about renovations or when a broker is wanting to recruit an agent and wants to be able to pull up a competitive comparison pdf on the spot. Our efforts on improving resource access would be mostly tailored to a desktop experience, but we made sure to note the end user needs for mobile usability when it comes to content discovery.
Ship it! We broke down the new, user-tested, product and business-vetted design into small chunks so we could start getting the updates into user hands and continue collecting feedback
What's next
With the final pieces coming together, I’ve started mapping out a plan to track analytics:
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user path vs expected path
-
most searched for resource item
-
article opens
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resource downloads (from result view compared with inside a post)
-
time to download from search
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time engaged in content discovery, etc.
Usability sessions will hopefully be a predictor of an improved experience for searching, scanning results, and ultimately identifying the right thing at the right time. To be continued...