Redefining how home buyers confidently manage their most important decision
Roles: UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher, Brand Strategist
Timeline: 2.5 weeks
Toolkit: Figma, Hubble
The home search process is overwhelming, a daunting task that buyers must navigate strategically while advocating for their own priorities
Buying a home is one of the most significant milestones in a person’s life, yet the process is often overwhelming, complex, and emotionally taxing. Many existing tools cater to the real estate industry rather than centering on the unique needs of buyers, leaving individuals to piece together their own methods of tracking priorities, evaluating options, and making informed decisions.
Through this project, I set out to create a solution that puts buyers first—empowering them with intuitive tools to track their priorities, streamline their search, and collaborate with their inner circle. The goal of this project is to address the challenges buyers face, such as managing their search effectively, adjusting expectations based on the market, and feeling confident about making one of life’s biggest decisions.
By identifying pain points through research and testing, I designed HomeWise, an app focused on simplifying the home-buying journey and giving buyers the clarity and confidence to make decisions on their terms. This case study outlines my design process, from understanding the problem to crafting solutions tailored to buyers' needs.
The problem
Home buyers lack efficient tools to track their unique priorities and access personal insights, leading to disorganization, frustration, and a lack of confidence during the home-buying process.
Existing real estate platforms lack tools for personalized priorities and tracking, forcing buyers to rely on manual methods in an already complex and emotional journey—highlighting a clear opportunity
Competitor Analysis
The competitor analysis of Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia revealed that while these platforms excel in providing extensive property listings and market data, they are primarily designed to serve the real estate industry rather than the unique needs of buyers. They lack features that address buyers' personalized priorities or provide tools for tracking and organizing the home-buying process. Without a centralized place for users to manage their custom goals, preferences, and collaboration, these platforms leave buyers to rely on manual methods, making the process more fragmented and less tailored to their individual journeys.
User Interviews
User interviews were conducted with four participants representing various stages of the home-buying journey, from experienced buyers to those still exploring. Participants shared a reliance on manual methods like notebooks, spreadsheets, and group texts to track priorities, gut feelings, and house details. They frequently recalibrated their expectations by revisiting sold prices and spent months observing the market to build confidence in their decisions, often distrusting realtors and prioritizing their own research. Emotional challenges, including overwhelm and the need for approval from an “inner circle,” highlighted the process’s complexity. While Zillow and Redfin were commonly used, participants primarily relied on their own tools and intuition, viewing the overall journey as challenging yet rewarding.
Sound bites from user interviews
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Sound bites from user interviews -
“Buying a house requires you to separate that (emotion) from the purchase...for example I went to go see my first Boston condo and it had a beautiful roofdeck and my agent who I have a relationship with and I trust was telling me that this listing was an 8 out of 10, and he’s someone I put a lot of faith in. Ultimately, when I looked back at the details of the home it was missing a lot of the things I actually needed…”
“I sometimes would use spreadsheets…list the link of the property and in columns include things I care about, then give it my own personal score, rate it from 0-10 based on how I feel. I had to create my own thing basically to track different properties I was interested in.”
“We had a little notebook and were taking notes about the things we felt were important in that notebook and stapling open house flyers in there, then I’d go back after the fact and write out how much it ended up selling for.”
The goal
Design a solution that enables users to track and manage how their personal priorities score with available home listings, empowering them to make informed decisions while also helping to analyze their local market in the context of their priorities, fostering a deeper understanding of what’s possible and enabling them to adjust expectations accordingly.
After my research, I faced the challenge of resisting quick solutions and instead let insights emerge through careful synthesis
Affinity Mapping
I had a lot of exciting conversations during User Interviews, and my mind was buzzing with ideas. To dive deeper into these conversations and create actionable insights, I created an Affinity Map.
Sample of the affinity map:
Here’s what I found:
Participants have to go through a process of confidence building by monitoring real estate, and gathering their own personal understanding of the market
There is a strong importance of involving friends and family in the search and decision process
Priority setting is key and priorities are varied among people
Taking personal photos and videos is common when touring a house
Checking to see what a house sold for is an important step in the participants independent research
There are a lot of emotions involved in this process - intimidation, overwhelming, excitement, stress
Participants have manual methods for tracking their process with notebooks, spreadsheets and folders
User Personas
In order to effectively design a solution, it was essential to understand the depths of the audience. To do this, I reviewed my research findings and formulated three user personas that would guide the rest of my design.
Project Goals
At this stage, I took a step back to evaluate the project from a broader perspective. I reflected on the overarching business objectives and how they aligned with user goals while also considering the technical requirements that would influence the solution.
Defining the problem
How might we streamline the process of setting and tracking priorities to ensure buyers stay aligned with their goals at all stages of the home buying process?
Problem Statement #1:
Home buyers often rely on manual methods, such as notebooks or spreadsheets, to set and track their priorities during the home-buying process. However, these methods can be time-consuming and inconvenient, leading some buyers to stop tracking altogether. Without an easy and efficient way to manage priorities, buyers may feel unprepared and lose focus on their goals. This lack of organization undermines their confidence, making it harder to feel ready and empowered when making such a significant decision.
How might we help buyers explore and refine their own priorities based on the realities of their local housing market?
Problem Statement #2:
Buyers are often keen to evaluate previous homes they were interested in and to check the final sale prices, but this process can be cumbersome and time-consuming when done manually. The lack of accessible insights into past sales and market trends makes it challenging for buyers to align their expectations with market realities. This gap can lead to delays in decision-making and increased frustration, hindering their ability to move forward confidently in the home-buying process.
Finally! With a clear problem space, it was time to bring HomeWise to life. I jumped into every aspect of the application — from the branding to the end solution.
Feature Set Prioritization
Working with a tight time constraint, it was essential to drill down the “must have” features that I would design in this first version.
User Flows
I started out by considering what flows the users would go through, focusing on four key flows. I came back to these User Flows a few times and after developing wireframes and completing User Testing.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
My experience working on the low fidelity wireframes for this project was a challenging one. With so many ideas swirling, putting pen to paper forced me to get specific and focus on how these concepts could effectively translate into a seamless user experience. This required mapping out a few different variations of my key screens and not getting too attached to one solution path, an open mind was essential to these first designs.
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Creating a home tour survey
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Onboarding a new user
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Importing a new home listing
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Main dashboard and navigation
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Transitioning to mid fidelity wireframes would serve as the version that I would bring back to users for User Testing.
User Testing & Iterations
Performing User Testing on the Mid Fidelity designs provided positive validation. Users found the flows purposeful and easy to follow with minimal guidance, described the processes as straightforward, and expressed excitement about the app’s features, envisioning it as a valuable tool in their home search.
One of the major iterations for this design came from this stage of testing: I found that while participants understood the priority score mechanism after explanation, a percent match design would be simpler and more effectively meet their decision-making needs.
Developing a brand
To bring HomeWise to life, I had to develop a strong look and feel that connected with the users. In order to guide those decisions, I thought more about the goals and mission of the app by developing core values.
For the logo, the house symbolizes the core focus of the app—helping individuals find and secure their ideal home. Its simplicity reflects the brand’s value of making the complex home-buying process intuitive and approachable, while the singularity emphasizes the personalized, buyer-centric approach that sets HomeWise apart in the market. For the color palette, natural tones that feel familiar and “home like”, with green representing growth and success tie everything together.
High Fidelity Wireframes
Usability Testing & Priority Iterations
Though I felt confident with the high fidelity designs I had developed, it was essential to get HomeWise back in front of users for testing. Throughout my design journey, I have come to really love usability testing and discussing feedback with users. I valued their initial reactions to HomeWise, and let their thoughts inform my final path to iterations.
Five participants completed tasks, including onboarding, setting priorities, marking custom priorities, and creating a home tour survey. Tests were unmoderated, conducted via Hubble, and supplemented with ad hoc feedback discussions.
Hearing the validation from users in testing:
“I like the idea generally, I've done this with printed sheets of paper or google sheets but an app would make it a lot easier, especially having the % score.”
Revision #1 - Onboarding Flow
During usability testing, participants reported that the flow sometimes felt disjointed because they were initially unsure they had to scroll and that the text of one of the buttons was unclear
Revision #2 - Navigation Menu
Usability Testing revealed that users had to click around to identify “My Search” in the navigation menu as the proper location for Priority Score and Home Tour Survey.
Revision #3 - Button UX Copy
Usability testing revealed that a few users reported the action of buttons was unclear based on the copy
The final design
The final prototype introduces HomeWise, a real estate app designed for buyers, showcasing key features such as:
Customizable home priority match scoring
Personalized home tour surveys with integrated note-taking
Seamless collaboration with the buyer’s inner circle
Looking ahead…
Though my design work on this project concluded, my ideas around this solution have not!
Keeping in touch with the research, here’s where I’d envision HomeWise to go as it’s next steps:
Calendar and To-Do List Features: Enable users to create home-buying to-do lists and sync with their calendars to stay organized in their home buying process
MLS Integration: Fully integrate with the real estate database to become a one-stop shop for property search and management
Enhanced Educational Tools: Expand resources with financial guidance and planning tools to support buyers throughout their journey
Home Owner Management: Dedicated features to managing your home after the purchase, ensuring long-term customer retention with HomeWise well beyond the home-buying journey
Recapping my journey on this project
This project was a great experience in working within a problem space that I’m passionate about. My own personal interest in real estate and helping those around me achieve this life milestone was a great fuel for this project.
My main learnings:
Through my work on HomeWise, I enhanced my skills in designing an end to end project – due to the time constraints, it sharpened my ability to hone in on specific problem statements and identify what feature set would deliver the most effective minimally viable project.
My iterations taught me how important ux writing is, and how a simple set of words can change how a user interprets the entire experience.
Keeping an open mind and remaining agile – my original designs had the core concept of a Priority Score, but after discussing with users it became clear this was overly complicated and not intuitive. I had to maintain an open mind to pivoting my core idea, and landed on a Priority % Match which feels more natural to users and I’m proud to have landed on this final design.