UX Research Team Kelley Howell, Manager Nicole Glover, UX Analyst

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 Questions We ask and report on three questions about users, our products, and the tools with which they find homes to buy or rent: 1.Is it useful? 2.Is it usable? 3.Is it desirable and pleasurable?

Methods To answer our questions we conduct research, gathering data from the following: 1. Visitor analytics 2. A/B experiments 3. Usability tests 4. Interviews 5. Observation: ride alongs with buyers, renters, and real estate agents 6. Diary Studies (proposed) 7. Surveys

UX Solutions Having 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 Solutions UX teams work with product and design teams devising design artifacts: 1. Principles to govern the appearance, behavior, brand image, and voice of our products 2. Practices defined in manuals of style and best practice for solving users problems 3. 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. Personas 2. User Story Mapping 3. Design Studios 4. Application framework analysis 5. Task analysis