“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”
~Seth Godin
The Problem to Solve
Expand, enhance and brand the Online Real Estate Application to further align with key strategic initiatives. After proven success with phase 1 of an Online Real Estate product, the Business was ready to gather and apply customer insights as well as apply a new product brand that the market was ready for. My role was to lead the UX efforts through close collaboration with the Product Manager, Ad Agency, Marketing Team, and Application Development Team.
Challenges
Existing data metrics on the site were limited to enterprise logging, and heat-maps and session recordings in Lucky Orange. We’d have to synthesize data from the two systems to build a clearer understanding of how our site was being used.
An aggressive release date was established early on by the Stakeholders and Product Team.
To keep the brand image consistent with the organization we worked closely with our Marketing Team and our external Ad Agency. This was a new working relationship and combined with the release date it was imperative to have a clear understanding of roles and expectations.
Approach
My first step was to understand the product vision and roadmap, previous experiments and learnings, and available data/research. I crafted a UX Strategy that would utilize Design Thinking methods to incorporate customer insights with the product goals and business strategy. From here we established goals around the MVP to be released under the new brand, and a prioritized backlog that would be influenced highly by metrics and continuous product discovery.
Research
With the help of another UX Designer and the Product Manager, we conducted virtual interviews with customers and prospects that had recently purchased Ag Real Estate. Each interview was accomplished by a phone call or zoom session, recorded and lasted about 30 minutes. Through this research we identified the process users went through and their goals, motivations, and dislikes. We also began gathering qualitative data that would inform our proto-personas.
Sketching
I facilitated 2 sketching sessions before any designs were started. One session was focused on generating ideas around on a new feature (based on business goals and user needs). The second sketching session was to establish any modifications to the original site design and experience. Both sketching sessions were informed by metrics, data, customer insights, and competitive analysis.
Wireframes
Utilizing the sketches, product goals, and research I created wireframes and an Interactive prototype of the Farmlend site. It was created in UX Pin. Using customer interviews and these would become the foundation for our visual design.
Visual Designs
I collaborated closely with the Ad Agency as they combined the brand concepts with the wireframes. They created the initial hi-fidelity designs in Figma. Any modifications made to the designs were a joint effort. The page layouts were exported to Zeplin and shared with the Development Team.
Google Analytics
Working with an SEO expert, the site had the appropriate meta tags, and event logging was setup in Google Analytics. This will provide great insights to how users are navigating the site and play an important role in validating assumptions, future designs and product goals.