UX Design Lead | UI Designer | UX Researcher
Visual design| 12 weeks
AM realty is a real estate firm in Nigeria that makes real estate investments simple and accessible to everyone by offering a low barrier to entry for people who want to acquire properties for either their personal use or investment purposes.
People interested in properties can invest in real estate through AM realty. While the offer presented is excellent, customers find it difficult to obtain precise information about the properties they are interested in, which has a significant impact on conversion rate, sales and company growth.
We needed a clear picture of what users encountered when attempting to use the website.
.png)
We conducted this study with 6 participants and assigned them easy tasks such as scheduling a property inspection, contacting the company about some of their services, looking for elements of credibility, and even purchasing a property.
None of the tasks were completed by our participants.
After the heuristic evaluation, we discovered the following issues that users had with the website.
Users usually spend some time browsing through a website before they consider becoming a customer. However, for AM Realty website, they struggled to find specific information on this website, such as the firm's services, precise information about the property they were interested in, and company socials. A website with a good UX should be simple and easy to use.
The primary goal of websites is to convert visitors into customers; however, majority of the users were quick to express their displeasure because of their inability to interact and find the appropriate Call-to-Action for sales at first glance.
Our users revealed that they were quick to abandon the website because it was designed in a way that lacked credibility and customer trust. There were a lot of inconsistencies in the alignment, layout and iconography.
The ability to access information on a particular property across a variety of options is critical to the growth of the company. This not only conveys credibility to the user but also aids in user conversion due to the simplicity of navigation. The following major areas served as the foundation for our designs.
I led the team through two research approaches, to gain a deeper understanding of our users' rationale and motives for acquiring properties. For the redesign, we used the following research methodologies.
We sent out a preliminary survey to learn more about property owners and what they look for when searching for a home to buy, as well as the sources of information they use to do so.
This was important to understand what they desired in a website that would capture their attention at first glance. The findings are shown below
Insight: The findings of our survey revealed that many of our respondents want to buy a home but aren't ready yet. We understood we needed to go out and find people who were ready to buy a property.
We conducted interviews with 8 participants who were interested in acquiring a property to collect detailed qualitative comments on how they go about doing so.
Many participants judged the legitimacy of an investment proposal on the internet by the amount of effort put in to develop the website, and even while doing so, many were hesitant to complete the process due to the possibility of being deceived.
Insight: We discovered that the majority of our participants were cautious about buying a home on the internet and that many websites had made it increasingly difficult for consumers to obtain information that might lead to sales.
Following the information gathered from our user research and heuristic evaluation, I found that merging the business and design goals meant that I had to concentrate on a few key areas, such as streamlining the user experience across the landing page, displaying the services rendered and property listings at a glance, thus meeting business and user goals such as key engagement, access to information, user retention and sales, with an emphasis on credibility and inclusiveness.
.png)
Knowing fully well the users' inability to properly trust a real estate investment website, the landing page was designed to communicate what the product is about, give credible statistics of achievements and a brief article on “why you should invest with us”. The landing page also gives a general overview of the website with a primary CTA of “Viewing properties” which in turn can translate to sales. This was made as clear as possible to the user - Credibility and trust.
Users seek specific information when looking for a property to invest in, and the property details page aims to present prospective clients with further information on the property they are viewing or considering purchasing. Many of the property detail pages I looked at had a recurring problem with the presentation of information that could enable customers to make a quick decision. I provided a CTA ("Schedule an Inspection'') for them to schedule a property viewing inspection.
.png)
Some users have little to no knowledge of properties or investments; the blog page includes a wealth of information and videos to help users navigate the real estate sector and keep them up to date.
.png)
Ask user to book an inspection for a property
Ask user to look for elements of credibility
Ask user to contact us on our services
Some users requested for a direct contact button beside the button for scheduling an inspection.
Our users found the site easy to navigate.
All of the task given were completed successfully by all our users
Creation of a Virtual reality tour for properties. At this point, users would not have to schedule a property inspection anymore.
Working on a project involving website conversion rate improvement was a lot of fun. I learned about copywriting and how it has a significant impact on a product. In the following months, I'm looking forward to seeing the product's success metrics.