UX Research TeamKelley Howell, Manager

Mission

Responsible for understanding the user experience of our product suite and the broader real estate search process.

The goal is to integrate empirical findings about users’ needs and goals into our product process, continually improving both tactical product development and strategic product design.

Guiding QuestionsWe ask and report on three questions about users, our products, and the tools with which they find homes to buy or rent:

1. Can I use it?2. Should I use it?3. Do I want to use it more than other products?4. Do I value using it?

MethodsTo answer our questions we conduct research, gathering data from the following:1. Visitor analytics2. A/B experiments3. Usability tests4. Interviews5. Observation: ride alongs with buyers, renters, and real estate agents6. Diary Studies 7. Surveys

UX SolutionsHaving uncovered frustrations with the home search products and the online search process, UX design resolves these frustrations by drawing on a UX body of knowledge:

1. Principles, practices, and patterns: frameworks and libraries of existing research-based design solutions

2. Tools and exercises to prompt creativity and innovation in the product design process

UX SolutionsUX teams work with product and design teams devising design artifacts:

1. Principles to govern the appearance, behavior, brand image, and voice of our products2. Practices defined in manuals of style and best practice for solving users problems3. Patterns house libraries and look books of common solutions to user problems

UX Solutions

UX researchers draw on methods to prompt innovation in the product design phase:

1. Design thinking workshops

2. User story mapping

3. Application frameworks / pattern libraries

4. Task and contextual analysis

5. Lean UX validation testing