Role
UX/Product Designer
Duration
11 weeks
Tools
Figma
UX Research
Skills
Content Exploration
Concept Ideation & Prototyping
Team
Dan Roge, Manager
David Sykes, Sr. Product Manager
Ty Magnum, Sr. UX Researcher
Amy Garvey, Sr. UXC Strategist
Max Holland, Sr. Software Engineer
TL;DR
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StreetEasy is NY’s leading search engine for renting, selling and buying apartments and real estate. StreetEasy has various selling options. I owned the redesign of the FSBO seller dashboard. For sale by owner —FSBOs are homeowners who prefer to list and sell without using an agent.
The seller dashboard aims to provide FSBOs with valuable data, insights and competitive metrics to help them sell their home successfully. Since only 20% of StreetEasy FSBOs are successful, the main goals of the FSBO Seller Dashboard were to create value and credibility around the FSBO product while receiving positive feedback from FSBOs about the redesign.
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To understand the problem space, I performed stakeholder interviews, persona analyses, and an audit of the current FSBO Seller Dashboard and other StreetEasy tools. Followed by competitive analysis and inspirational exploration, I uncovered four major problem areas and pain points to address for the redesign.
FSBOs need:
Guided Wayfinding & Sensemaking on how to position their listing to be competitive.
Empowering Marketplace & Listing Resources to help them create meaning on the information provided and how it can be utilised.
Confidence and Encouragement to gauge their progress during their selling journey and reduce early dejection.
More Help than the dashboard can provide and assistance in acquiring agent support.
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Through content exploration, team workshops, feedback sessions and leveraging use cases, the redesigned dashboard focused on providing FSBOs autonomy of their selling experience through viewing options, resources on market trends and awareness of their standing in their selling journey.
How was this achieved?
Supplied FSBOs with broken-down and digestible introductory tips, definitions and context on how to use the information being provided.
Curated important resources to bolster FSBOs understanding of larger real estate concepts that factor into successful listings.
Used available StreetEasy data and touchpoints to situate users on where they are in their journey.
Used in-product tooltips to subtly show agent offerings for FSBOs needing expert support.
Process Detail
The FSBO Seller Dashboard redesign made FSBOs confident in their selling process by providing valuable insights and data to inform their listing. FSBOs were able to make educated strategic decisions based on real estate and market information which shed light on their competitors.
Use the embedded Figma file to click through the final redesign. To view the in-depth reasoning for the features implemented, click ‘View Full Solutions’ to explore the mid-fi solutions.
Process Deep Dive: If you have time to explore my work, keep reading!
Background
At Zillow, I worked on the StreetEasy team redesigning the FSBO Seller Dashboard. StreetEasy is the leading NYC marketplace and search engine for renting, selling and buying apartments and real estate.
A seller’s ultimate goal is to receive offers on their property, sell at the highest possible price in the shortest amount of time and have a successful transaction. Most sellers use an Agent and are heavily reliant on them for updates, selling strategies and market analysis. Some Sellers decide to take advantage of StreetEasy’s FSBO product to avoid paying a high listing agent commission.
What is the Seller Dashboard?
After listing your home, the goal is for FSBOs to unlock a dashboard to help them view their listing’s performance, valuable data points and statistics and compare their listing to others on the market.
The current FSBO reporting tool lacks practical insight for the seller. Only 20% of FSBOs listed on StreetEasy are successful. By growing the dashboard, StreetEasy can ensure FSBOs more success selling their home while improving their overall experience with the product.
THE ASK“Create a Seller Dashboard that will increase the success rate of FSBO users selling their home”
Problems Identified
Understanding the problem space
After reviewing pre-existing research, I performed discovery research to answer unknown questions and understand the significant pain points FSBOs face using the StreetEasy product and with competitors.
Understanding the Product & User
Goal: Form an understanding of the FSBO landscape from an industry perspective, and identify the opportunity for the product and StreetEasy’s current positioning. These interviews shed light on product expectations, success metrics and constraints outside the defined objectives.
Stakeholder Interviews
Stakeholder Interviews - Results & Learnings
Types of FSBOs
**With more time and resources, I would have conducted user interviews and concept testing to observe and identify distinct FSBO personas. These results were gathered through Stakeholder Interviews and first-hand industry perspectives.
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“I want to save money and don’t believe agents will benefit my selling process.”
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“I want to try FSBOs for 2-3 months because I know enough about selling to be successful.”
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“I want a trial run with FSBO in case I’m successful, so I can avoid the agent commission.”
To understand the problem fully, I needed to answer these questions:
1. Who are FSBOs and what are the current barriers to success?
2. What prior research has been done?
3. What is the current FSBO landscape?
4. What is the opportunity for the product?
Analysis of the Current FSBO Reporting Tool
Goal: Analyse the currently reporting tool against StreetEasy’s experience objectives and user needs.
Results & Learnings:
FSBOs didn’t have:
In-depth information and visibility into their listing
Competitive performance benchmarks
Rich datapoint to evaluate their home’s market value
Context on data being presented
Audit of the Agent-Seller Dashboard
Goal: Understand how this dashboard reaches StreetEasy experience objectives, what features of the dashboard can be repurposed and utilised for FSBOs, and what additional considerations are needed.
Results & Learnings:
With the Agent-Seller Dashboard, Sellers can:
Understand market conditions with accuracy and less effort
See insights on their home with unique and relevant information
Compare their standing with recently sold/on-the-market listings
Goal: See how StreetEasy compares to other competitors with FSBO product offerings and gain inspiration for a potential direction.
Competitive Analysis
After going through discovery research, I formed a deep understanding of the user, what factors lead to early dejection, and unsuccessful FSBOs. The current tool lacks valuable insight into listing performance, what the seller can expect based on market conditions and how they stack up against others on the market.
Framing the problem space
1.
Guided Wayfinding & Sensemaking
“I need support and guidance on how to position my listing to be competitive.”
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Empowering Marketplace & Listing Resources
“How do I use the data provided to create meaning? I don’t know what it means or why it’s helpful to me.”
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“I want to know I’m on the right track. Where do I stack up compared to other listings and FSBOs?”
Confidence & Encouragement
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“I need more guidance than the dashboard can provide. The process isn’t worth the cost save, I can’t do this without an agent.”
More Help
To view the complete discovery output presentation, out-of-scope learning and future states for the four major needs identified click here.
Approach
After identifying the major needs, presenting to stakeholders and receiving alignment, I sketched and explored possible explorations. Through annotations, holding brainstorming workshops, and in-sync/async feedback sessions from my team the visual design approach began to take tangible form.
Idea Exploration & Feedback Session
Use Cases & User Stories
By expressing the value of identified product features through user stories, I was able to build tangible use cases which resulted in clear, coherent and holistic experiences.
By upping the fidelity of the concept sketches, I was able to give walkthroughs to my team, product manager and lead engineer to acknowledge resourcing constraints, product scope and initial accessibility concerns.
Low-fi Concepts
How might we…increase support, clarity, and confidence in the FSBO dashboard so more people can successfully sell their homes?
Mid-fi Solutions
***Content has been replaced with ‘Lorem Ipsum’ to comply with the NDA***
Guided Wayfinding & Sensemaking
Supply FSBOs with broken-down and digestible introductory tips, definitions and context on how to use the information being provided.
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Onboarding tools will only be activated during FSBO’s first interaction with the dashboard. The first tooltip with have the touch point ‘next’ and the following tips will have a back/forward arrow.
After the initial onboarding, these tooltips will not be shown again, instead, information will live in the explainer boxes where users have the choice to dismiss them.
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Expand gives users the choice of seeing more data-rich content in a condensed manner including important tips, guidance, and support as needed.
Collapse view compresses additional resources and wayfinding information.
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Explainer boxes are shown in the expanded view of the dashboard and are updated every 2 weeks based on the changing data.
Explainer boxes are on a carousel and have four variations of cards from simple title and body cards to illustrations and CTAs. Users can dismiss definition cards.
Curate important resources* to bolster FSBOs understanding of larger real estate concepts that factor into successful listings.
*Resources around listing price, photography, staging, 3D tours, floor plans, listing copy, open houses, pricing and negotiation, etc
Empowering Marketplace/Listing Resources
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FAQs give FSBOs short and direct answers to the questions they have pertaining to the dashboard, data and listing process. FSBOs can find all their answers in one place without having to leave the dashboard to get updates on the selling market.
An additional benefit of the FAQs section is reducing the time spent by customer success teams repeatedly answering questions.
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Filters options were gathered based on interviews, customer service data, and concept testing. With those selected filters, I performed content exploration and finalised 8-10 questions FSBOs may have based on the chosen categories.
Use available StreetEasy data and touch points to situate users on where they are in their journey.
Confidence & Encouragement
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FSBOs are often siloed in their selling journey unaware of how they, other FSBOs and sellers are doing which leads to high percentages of delists. These tooltips will act as motivation and positioning for FSBOs.
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Agents often change a property’s selling price to refresh their listing to potential buyers. Highlighting these changes to FSBOs will help them strategise while indicating changing market trends.
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Most sales occur through an agent, so by highlighting FSBO-specific sales, users can use the table of comparable listings to identify a target price range. FSBOs can look at the strategies other FSBOs employed in their listing description, photography, and monthly costs.
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See more information about explainer boxes under ‘Guided Wayfinding & Sensemaking’
Use in-product tooltips and modals to subtly show agent offerings for FSBOs needing expert support.
More Help
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The original dashboard did not have an avenue for FSBOs to renew their listing on the dashboard. Including the ‘Talk with Concierge’ option allows FSBOs who are unsure of renewing to chat with an expert and see what options they have.
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Agent cards can be used to get users to renew their listing or move to sell with an agent. Since this section appears two weeks before listing expiry, it subtly urgers FSBOs to think about their next steps.
Reflection
I gained a lot of first-hand experience owning the end-to-end redesign of the FSBO Seller Dashboard. This redesign spanned 11 weeks and there is still more work to do with this project. The next steps would be finalising the product spec with my product manager and setting up handoff sessions to walk through the redesign with the lead engineers.
After the finalised product spec, I would have socialised the new redesign with stakeholders and the customer success team to ensure they are aware of the new dashboard prepping them to navigate any FSBO inquiries. Since the initial redesign prioritised desktop because of its high engagement metrics, during the development process, I’d work on a responsive mWeb and app version.
Project Learnings
1. Annotate Wireframes for Async Feedback: In a remote environment, there are times when synchronous feedback sessions aren’t possible. Leaving annotations on my wireframes, providing wayfinding on my Figma files and asking for specific feedback really helped move this project along.
2. Reach out to document owners for synthesis and insights: The FSBO Seller Dashboard was a redesign project so there had been previous documentation, and research done. To save time, understand the what was most important and prior decisions that were made, I had walkthrough synthesis sessions with the document owners. This was extremely beneficial and produced great insights.
3. Rightsize, rightsize, rightsize: Figuring out the optimal scope for this project was a big learning experience for me. From stakeholder interviews and discovery presentations to feedback workshops, I had to tweak things here and there to anticipate the right level of delivery. If given more time I would have loved to do more testing, user interviews and concept/content explorations.