Building Agent Profile

Objective

RentSpree's objective was to establish a fresh product line encompassing agent tools, offering a comprehensive suite of services to empower real estate agents in their pursuit of success. Within the real estate realm, experience and trust serve as paramount drivers of growth.

Solution

Offering a free space for agents to showcase their rental properties, specialties, and experiences can help build trust with potential clients. This can ultimately lead to increased success and growth in their careers.

My Role

As a senior product designer, I define requirements, conduct concept testing, design user flows, and create UI designs that balance user needs and business goals. My aim is to enhance product awareness and user adoption through user-friendly designs that exceed expectations and ensure a seamless experience.

Discovery

The first step was to gain a clear understanding of RentSpree's product offerings and user journeys. This involved conducting research and analyzing the existing user experience to identify gaps that needed to be addressed in order to adapt the agent profile. Before beginning the design of user journeys and concept designs, thorough research and analysis were conducted to understand competitors' experiences and feature analysis. This involved gathering information about their product offerings, user experience, and overall approach to the market. Competitor research was conducted on several platforms, including ***Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Compass, Homesnap, and RateMyAgent*,** as well as ***LinkedIn***. I found the main features have agent profile, property display area, Agent review or recommendation and sharing. - Zillow offers a suite of services for both renters and agents, collectively known as Zillow Premier Agent. This includes a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, agent team management features, and email services. - RateMyAgent has amazing signing up system. To claim their agent profile, users simply need to enter the agent's name or email address into the system. The system will then send an email validation to the user, confirming the claim of the agent profile. Most agents created their profile for several platforms this point reduces sign up journey time rate more than other platform. - LinkedIn is a job-focused social media platform where users create professional profiles to showcase their experiences. Consistency with other professional career profiles is essential to ensure user familiarity with the platform.

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Deep Understanding with Journey Mapping and Design Solution

After understanding RentSpree's product and competitors, the UX researcher team provided an agent journey mapping. This detailed the experience of agents who represent landlords and renters, from acquiring new clients to closing the deal. This helped identify key touchpoints for integrating the agent profile and provided insights into the agents' pain points and needs throughout the rental process.

Wireframing

Before handing off the final prototype design to the development team, there are three main steps: wireframing, concept testing, and prototyping. During this process, the software engineers are simultaneously working on developing the agent profile feature. However, a designer needs to provide support for testing and validation before the end of the sprint. After the completion of the ideation workshop and discussion with the product manager, two designs were sketched, each offering distinct approaches to the entry point and user engagement in order to promote the adoption of the agent profile within RentSpree. Design A: By placing the entry point for the agent profile on the dashboard, Design A ensures that users can easily access and create their profiles. Pro: This placement takes advantage of the dashboard's central location, making it convenient for users to navigate and initiate the profile creation process. Con: The main emphasis in the information architecture is on rental service features, which are crucial for RentSpree. While the agent profile is an important part of the agent tools, it may not be used as frequently as rental service features. The priority is to ensure easy access to rental service features while still offering agents the option to create and manage their profiles. Design B: This design takes a different approach by placing the entry point for the agent profile on the navigation menu, specifically within the account menu. This allows for easy access and management of the profile, as it is closely related to personal information. Pro: The RentSpree dashboard primarily focuses on rental services, with the agent profile being a direct platform for agents to promote themselves. By providing a clear and distinct section for agent profiles, RentSpree ensures that users can readily navigate and engage with the profile creation process without distractions from other dashboard elements. Con: A potential drawback is that the agent profile feature may not receive enough visibility and emphasis at the entry point, resulting in users creating their profiles but not frequently revisiting or updating them.

Concept Testing

During the concept design phase, I suggested conducting concept testing to ensure that our new product is user-friendly and familiar to users. I created clickable prototypes and defined specific tasks to be tested and validated. Seeking consultation with the User Experience Research (UXR) team. This iterative process helped refine the design and enhance the overall user experience.

Testing Goals & Results

Testing Goals

Identify most intuitive entrance for professional profile set-up.
Identify friction points in profile creation.
Identify how user react while creation profile {emotional/behavioral analysis}

Testing Results

Both Prototype 1 and Prototype 2 were functional in terms of interaction. However, users provided feedback regarding the color and text of the captions or descriptions, noting that they were difficult to see.Interestingly, users mentioned that Prototype 2 had a cleaner design for setting up the agent profile, allowing them to easily manage all the necessary information on a single page. This made it clear which pieces of information needed to be filled out.On the other hand, for the public view page, Prototype 1 was preferred due to its better layout and arrangement of information. It was suggested that the hierarchy of information in Prototype 1 should be restructured to further enhance usability and readability.

After the researcher shared the testing results, the cross-functional team engaged in discussions to finalize the design of the agent profile. Based on user feedback gathered during testing, it was decided to add a cover image to the profile. Additionally, I shared the accessibility feedback with the design system team to ensure that the necessary improvements are made in that regard.

Learning Recap

Drsign Impact

By owning the end-to-end product strategy and UX architecture for the Agent Profile from scratch, I successfully transformed raw competitive research and usability testing data into a validated, launch-ready MVP. Building this foundational feature not only unlocked a new engagement vector for real estate agents but also established a trusted digital identity framework that directly drives user trust and lead generation. This product-led initiative proved our market hypothesis swiftly, creating a highly scalable foundation for future monetization and premium feature rollouts.

What I learned

Through my work, I have gained extensive knowledge of the real estate industry in the United States, specifically focusing on the occupation of real estate agents. This has allowed me to develop a deep understanding of the industry landscape and the unique aspects of each state's real estate market. I had the opportunity to closely collaborate with the product manager in making crucial decisions regarding the product direction. This involved analyzing data, incorporating customer feedback, and working alongside the marketing team. By actively participating in these discussions, I gained insights into the role of a product manager and developed a holistic understanding of how various factors, such as data, customer insights, and marketing strategies, influence product decisions. Working collaboratively with the US team, particularly the UX researcher team, taught me the importance of efficient organization across time zones. As a designer and product manager, I learned to effectively coordinate with both the US and Thai teams, particularly the software engineering team. By establishing regular meetings and utilizing collaborative tools.

The Challenge

Geographical Limitation: The primary challenge was the geographical limitation of our user base and competitors being concentrated in the USA. This restricted our direct access to competitor tools due to licensing requirements. To compensate, I conducted extensive research by reading articles, blogs, and watching educational videos on platforms like YouTube. These sources provided valuable insights into the experiences of agents, renters, and the rental application process, allowing me to gain a comprehensive understanding of the industry. Brand Awareness through Profile Sharing: Another challenge was to enhance brand awareness through profile sharing. By encouraging agents to create and share their RentSpree profiles, we aimed to increase brand exposure. The roll-out of the profile sharing feature has shown a positive trend, with a growing number of agents successfully utilizing and promoting their profiles. This has contributed to raising awareness and visibility for RentSpree in the industry.