Based on interviews and discovery with real estate investors and industry professionals we built empathy and a understanding of the common goals and pains different investors experienced.
- Investors find it difficult to identify suburbs that match their personal needs.
- Investors expressed they wanted more data about specific areas.
- People felt they lacked the tools that helped identify investment opportunities
- It was difficult to identify trends they can use to find areas for investment
- People found it hard to compare and evaluate suburbs.
Customer Canvas
Gives the team a summary and quick reference to the core customer insights & observations
Inexperienced Investors often rely on the words of friends and family when looking for investment suburb opportunities
HMW Statements & Key Questions
Broad questions about the problems we need to solve and what information we need to find in order answer key user questions.
Experienced Investors look for long term historical trends, demographics and suburb property composition to find promising areas for investment.
CX Journey & Flow Mapping
Mapping the ideal user flow through our search experience and addressing what tasks and information is required at each stage help us confidently begin UI ideation.
How might we help investors discover the best suburbs for their investment needs & what characteristics define a suburb as a good investment area?
We observed how experienced investors used data to make better decisions and worked with them to understand research methods for finding great areas for investment. We also tested and rapidly iterated upon our prototypes based on customer feedback to consistently refine the following solutions.
- Investor Goal Driven Search : Investors can search larger areas for top performing suburbs based on common investment goals; growth, rental yield, growth speed, or a balance of rental yield and growth.
- Key Investment Data & Comparison: Investors often will compare suburbs across specific criteria to find the best area of opportunity. Investors can explore and compare key data; performance trends, property makeup, demand, demographics and core amenities helping them narrow down suburbs with better investment opportunity.
- Suburb Heat Map: People who prefer to search visually can explore a heat map of s suburb performance. People can inspect the key investment criteria and data trends responsible for this suburbs ranking allowing them to quickly understand if this suburb is right for them.
- Favourite Suburbs & Listing Search: People can shortlist suburbs that fit their investment needs and can quickly search for property investments opportunities in these areas.
Observing how experienced investors managed their investment journey helped us design solutions that could help new investors feel the same level of confidence in their search.
We sought to rapidly iterate and validate our ideas based on qualitative observations such as if users could easily complete tasks, understood the function and purpose of each section and expressed that this tool would help their search for better investment opportunities .
Investor Search
People can quickly search large areas based on the common core investment goals of growth, rental yield or a balance of both.
We found people reacted positively to searching larger areas but people expressed the wanted to see regional location search areas such "South Eastern Suburbs"
Investment Data & Comparison
Users can inspect a list of top performing suburbs in the area searched and view detailed data comparisons of the core aspects that comprise what makes an area suitable for investment for their personal needs.
People expressed they found the suburb data comparisons useful and would help feel more confident about a find the right suburb for investment, but wanted to do this on their short listed suburbs
Suburb Heat Map
Investors can view a heat map of suburb performance and quickly inspect performance trends and specific data for
It was interesting to observe that some investors where looking for suburbs that were "earlier on the property clock" and wanted to explore deeper into the results list or yellow and red areas on the heat map.
This search tool allows investors away of searching and assessing areas for investment based on data. It also uses visualisation techniques such as heat mapping and comparative data design to help customers make confident and educated decisions about their next investment.
- Refine the relationship between the results list, heat map and comparative suburb data screens.
Observation: People browsed suburb performance and then wanted to deep dive on data compare suburbs from their short list.
- Run an experiment on our heat map to see if customers find it more useful to identify suburbs using a gradient map.
Primary Metric: Saved Suburbs
Secondary Metric: Suburb CTA - Investigate the question "how might we help investors find suburbs earlier on the property clock"
Action: Run a sketching workshop with our team on this concept.
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