I completed research and design for a mobile app to simplify the workflow of commercial property appraisers.
Design
Opportunity
I had the pleasure of working with the largest real estate service provider in the world. In June of 2018 the company invited me to be part of a small team to solve a 20-year old problem: an appraiser’s workflow. Since the mid-90s an appraiser’s workflow consisted of many steps. These included gathering data on a property, doing a site visit, capturing notes and photos while at the property, gathering data on similar properties (called ‘comps’), and collecting the data into a report. The appraiser uses up to 7 tools to complete the task of getting the property appraised. We had an opportunity to condense 5 of those tools into 1 and cut down on several laborious tasks.
What was the
Problem
How can we reduce the number of steps, tools, and time it takes to complete an appraisal?
Currently appraiser’s have an archaic, cumbersome way of appraising real estate. The process involves too many tools and steps, amounting to several weeks of work. Our team set out to design and develop a mobile app to improve the workflow. We needed to uncover the pain points in the process, and create a solution that reduced the number of steps.
Appraisers begin the process by walking a property and jotting notes. Notes are captured on whatever tool they have available: a note-taking app, pencil and paper, or the back of receipts in their pockets. There is no way to organize and file this information. One can only hope that there is enough room to write or the information isn’t forgotten before getting back to their desk.
While capturing notes, appraisers take photos using their personal phone. Most of the time there is no way to relate photos back to notes, especially physical notes. On average, an appraiser will forget why they took 75 out of every 100 photos.
These are only a handful of the many inefficiencies. After touring a property, appraisers go back to the office, which may be more than an hour away. Once at their desks, appraisers upload their photos to their computers, often using insecure methods. Using an XLS template created and passed around in the 90s, appraisers enter data they can recall, add photos, and generate a report. Many appraisers have low-budget laptops, and the report generation takes up to 6 hours. Frustration can be sky high when their computer goes to sleep or freezes during the process.
What was the
Solution
One tool to rule them all. Well...most of them.
Our team set out to design and develop a mobile app to improve the workflow. We uncovered the pain points in the process, and created a solution that reduced the number of steps.
The mobile app we created allowed appraisers to take photos, and document or change the property data on file. Once finished, they could push data to the cloud and pick up the flow from their computer and import it into a report.
The Impact
During our research we validated our design and found gained interesting insights. Due to the proprietary nature of the information, I can only share that we did well enough to earn business approval.
The product team praised my work and process. In a note to my supervisor, the product manager had this to say:
"We uncovered the pain points in the process, and created a solution that reduced the number of steps."
What was our
Process
Project Goals
- Reduce the tools needed to complete an appraisal.
- Reduce the time it takes to complete an appraisal.
- Create a seamless workflow bridging the gap between gathering property information and getting it into the final report.
- Get tenured appraisers to adopt a new workflow.
My Role
The team consisted of a product owner, scrum master, two UI developers, a solution architect, and several other developers. I was responsible for the design and validation of a proof of concept. I led and facilitated design workshops including journey mapping sessions and lightning rounds. Here is a sample of the sprint plan an deliverables I put together.
Our Process
The team started by conducting user research and running mini design sprints. The team met with stakeholders, such as the heads of appraisers, to learn about the workflow and plan how to gain insights into the existing process. The next step was to perform contextual inquiries with appraisers. These helped us understand the appraisal process and identify pain points. We took turns observing appraisers doing their work at multi-family housing (MFH) units (i.e. apartments). We asked questions about their work to gain clarity and documented the workflow.
We took this data and created a journey map, identifying pain points we saw. We asked “How Might We” questions and dream up how to simplify the journey. We followed with a competitive analysis, and I facilitated Lightning Round workshops to get ideas from the entire team.
We ran iterative agile sprints and held regular touch-bases to keep product, design, and development aligned. Using pen and paper I created wireframes and designed mockups of the iOS app and Microsoft Word plugin. I mocked up hi-fidelity designs in Sketch, and created a child-design system that fed components back into the larger system. I used Overflow to create user flow diagrams to capture the desired journey.
I partnered with the PM to perform user testing in InVision, and developers came to observe. We used Dovetail to take notes and synthesize our findings. We tagged feedback to measure the each appraisers feelings toward the experience and visual design. It also enabled us to view feedback from different angles (i.e. appraiser type, interviewer, number of interviews, etc) to make sure we were capturing equal and unbiased feedback. Once we had a stable app available, we conducted further testing with appraisers on site while they performed their work.
Challenges
One constraint was having a short timeline to release a proof of concept. The business had aggressive goals for modernizing their processes. We often faced this challenge with being scrappy, and be mindful of what it cost us.
Another challenge I had was getting buy-in for trying out 1-week Sprints. I started by showing my team how including them in the creative process gave us the best start possible. Plus they had a lot of fun contributing during Lightning Rounds. But they had work to get done as well so I wasn’t able to get the team to fully adopt a new way of working.
Getting access to appraisers was difficult at first. Appraiser’s we spoke to had never interacted with UX designers or a team interested in their work. Some were even suspicious, and shielded their work from us. We had to seek out Heads of appraiser groups and ask them to partner with us to build relationships. That came with its own troubles because Heads were not convinced that their appraiser would adopt new technology.
Introducing The
Final Product
Here's what we launched to a pilot group of appraisers.
Tour queue
We designed a dashboard that displayed the appraiser’s properties. Head Appraisers assign properties, and appear in the appraiser’s queue. The cards show the appraisal status, property name, property type, and address. Appraisers have the option to tap the card to view details of the property, or start taking photos.
Property analysis
Based on interviews and historical records, we created an intake form tied to help appraisers capture notes fast. The form adapts to the property type, and reduces the dependency on excessive photos. The form reduces laborious data entry by leveraging form elements with pre-filled options.
Not all properties are the same, and neither are the appraisal reports. We also added an option to add sections to the analysis to customize and tailor the reports.
Photo capture with notes
Appraisers scribble notes and take photos, without a way to tie them together. We solved this by creating a camera feature where appraisers could take a picture and “caption” it. Users can select from the most common captions or add their own. We would use custom entries to train our database of captions over time. Once captured, users had the option to take more photos using the same caption, or move on to another caption.
Some appraisers preferred to work in reverse order. We made sure users could create captions and then take a series of photos to meet all user’s working preferences.
Build Reports
When an appraiser has finished on site they can review their work on the phone. Some reports have specific formatting requirements, so appraisers can edit the photo aspect ratios in the app. When enabled, the property data and photos backup to the cloud so they don’t lose their work. When ready, appraisers select the photos to go into the report. After reviewing a PDF preview of the report, the appraiser exports the data to a report they can pick up from their desktop.
Import and finish on desktop
Back at their desk, appraisers can pull in their appraisal data with ease. We created a Microsoft Word plugin for appraisers to import their data exported from the app. It will generate a template and securely import the data. With the heavy lifting done, appraisers only have to review for mistakes or expand on their notes.
My Lessons
Learned
How I continue to grow as a designer and a person.
Solving Big Problems Without Big Budget
This project was like nothing I’d ever done before. Coming in, I was unfamiliar with the real estate industry, let alone the appraisal process. Ironically, I was in the process of buying my first house while working on this project. It was both fascinating and a little unsettling after seeing how arduous and inefficient the process was.
Initially, I was concerned that we would not be able to deliver anything that made an impact. Our team was small, our budget was limited, and our timeline was short (actually this sounds really familiar…). But our team was able to gain insights into the problem, dream big, and iterate fast. We delivered a working prototype that impressed business stakeholders and enabled the team to move forward.