Home Search

Overview

Homebot acquired NestReady, a home search product, in August 2021 and set a target to integrate their product into their experience within 100 days. This meant adding an entirely new product channel (search) into our product along with the effects on our current experience (styling, navigation, core emails, customer, etc.) We achieved the launch target date with lots of de-scoping, porting, and a sub-par user experience. Following the 100-day launch, we ran moderated usability sessions, identifying table-stakes areas we needed to improve to even be considered against the likes of Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor. 

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Background

• Homebot acquired NestReady, a home search product, and integrated it within 100 days.
• This target was achieved but resulted in a de-scoped, ported, sub-par user experience.
• Moderated usability sessions identified areas for improvement (searching, listing results map/list display, listing detail page, clusters, and map markers).

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Action

• I sketched ideas and rapidly prototyped responsive designs, to solve the key jobs to be done within the search experience. I focused on search, navigation, map clusters, map markers, and landing page. I paired with another designer on the listing results and listing detail pages.
• I usability tested low and high-fidelity prototypes to improve confidence in the design direction before committing to code.
• I worked with our product squad to prioritize and groom product feature improvements by impact/effort and created a product backlog.
• I conducted usability sessions using Lookback.io where all engineers on our product team were directly exposed to people using our experience, building empathy, and creating a team of missionaries.

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Outcome

• A significantly improved, usable, useful home search experience product. Measured through Amplitude and UX Benchmarking (SEQ and Time On Task).
• An organization that understood why, how, and what the product team was building to create value for our customers. 
• A team that was rapidly delivering small chunks of value and building empathy with users by following a process similar to the Double Diamond.
• A team of engineers talked through the voice of the user to present a demo of product improvements to the entire organization.
• Engineers were so passionate about solving problems for users, that they picked up this work up during HIP sprints.