Making home buying more accessible through UX design

Brief:

For this project Avery and I worked to redesign Zillows website to increase the number of tours booked on Zillow. Through Forge’s launch program we developed this UX case study to solve the issue Zillow had.

Problem Statement:

Is there a way to increase the number of tours users book on Zillow with changes to their user experience? We tested various design solutions to accomplish just that. How do we make this process less intimidating for our user?

User Research:

First, we talked to users from all different perspectives on Zillow: adults who have bought homes both in person and online with lots of experience, college students with minor experience, and those who look at Zillow for fun, but have never bought a home.

We conducted non-directed interviews to get a sense for their feelings towards buying a home, going on tours, and interacting with agents. Then, we conducted ethnographic interviews to see how users naturally interpreted Zillow’s web app interface when deciding to tour or not.

From these interviews, we discovered that many users are intimidated by touring homes with agents, as it feels like too much commitment, and many have a lack of trust for real estate agents.

• “It’s awkward to have someone follow you around while exploring a home. It makes you feel pressured to buy…“
• “I would not want to enter my personal information to meet with an agent.”
• “I need to know I can trust the agent to have integrity and not try to pressure me.”

Journey Map:

When speaking with users and observing them using Zillow, we noticed that they start off optimistic, but begin to get apprehensive about booking a tour as they consider the fact that they would be meeting an agent who they’ve never met before in person. The tour booking page also requires the user to input their personal contact information, which makes users worry that they will receive marketing calls and emails.

Solutions:

Based on our research, the main barriers keeping users from booking tours on Zillow are intimidation, too much commitment, and lack of trust. In order to solve this, we kept in mind three goals when designing our solutions: make the interface foster approachability, transparency, and humanization of the agents.

Wireframing:

After conducting our research we added some features to Zillow’s site to quell our users intimidation and make it feel like a process that is more casual and has less commitment. We tried to add features that benefit the user without saturating the webpage too much.

For inspiration we looked to a couple established companies. We looked to GroupMe and Amazon for inspiration for the UX design of our inbox as well as our Q&A pages.

Usability Testing:

After creating a high-fidelity prototype from our wireframes, we had users try using the new interface. We asked them to perform a few key tasks, such as form a conclusion from an initial glance at an agent profile, message an agent, find a question in the Q&A page, and book a tour.

Essential takeaways from this testing were that our initial design of the agent profile page required a more intuitive layout of the agent’s information, and a clearer CTA to direct message them. Also, our button to access the public questions and answers confused some users with its name “Forum”, so we changed it to “Q&A” to clarify what would come up when clicked. Some buttons, such as the access to the agent profile from the DM page also seemed unclear that they could be clicked, so we added changes to the name design when hovering to indicate it is a button.

Mockups:

We were tasked not with completely redesigning Zillow but instead adding features where they were needed for the user experience. Our challenge was to add useful features that fit naturally into the UI of the existing Zillow website. We wanted to change the functionality of the site without compromising simplicity and usability.

We sought to make this process more accessible and inviting to the user by adding a couple key features. Firstly we implemented a DM agent feature and an inbox of your messages with agents. This allows the user to communicate with the agent in a more casual setting without giving away personal information like phone number or email and opening yourself up to aggressive marketing tactics. We made this feature easy to access by allowing the user to navigate to the inbox screen from multiple other screens throughout the UX process.

We also added a Q&A feature that pops up from the listing screen and allows users to view and search questions that have been asked by other users and answered by the agent. We were hoping this allowed users to gain information that wasn’t in the listing without directly reaching out to the agent.

Takeaways:

A less intimidating approach to UX for a real estate site wouldn’t just benefit the introvert homebuyers out there. A more approachable, transparent, and humanized Zillow app that encourages booking tours could lead to increased sales for agents, and therefore a more successful Zillow.