Search Filters

My ROLe
  • Responsible for ideation & user testing with senior product designer
  • Research - Data analysis & best practices
  • Design - Ideation and low-fi wireframes
  • Evaluate & Analyse -  Planned & conducted usability testing, analysed test results & changed design iteratively
CONtext
PURpose
Property search is a core user journey within the Property Finder app. The property search experience is also the first user touchpoint within our app.

Currently the filter has too many options presented making the experience overwhelming, cumbersome and confusing. We believe that by redesigning our filters and result page we will help our users to find what they need quicker, faster and easier which increase our business revenue eventually.
Objectives
  1. Redesign search filters
  2. Increase lead submission by providing more relevant search results
Approach
We approached this problem from multiple angles, studying how users currently interact with the app, the data describing these interactions, as well as a holistic examination of the property search process.
  1. Data analysis to understand how users interact with the app now
  2. On-Device user surveys to understand what is the most important factor when making a decision
  3. Competitor review & best practices for ideation
  4. Hi-fi prototype for user testing to minimise development risks
Challenge
HMW encourage users to apply as many filters as possible without overwhelming them?
OUr Goal

The more refined search results, more possibilities to submit lead forms.

Process
Research Findings
  1. Users who used filters were almost 4 times as likely to convert as those who did not
  2. Currently, the filter shows 11 property types at a time but more than 75% of all searches are for only 2 property types
  3. The most used filters are: location, price and number of bedrooms
  4. Users indicated that prior to beginning their search, they already had a preference for property type, price and bedroom count
  5. Users consider price to be the most important factor when making a decision

Showing 11 different property types at a time. More than 75% of all searches for only 2 property types

Design

We aim to not just improve the usability of filters but rather to make the best possible property search experience. We would like our customers to find nothing less than their dream home while sparking joy, fostering insight and making Dubai their very own.

Instead of showing hundreds of listings upfront we would like to provide a welcome message and discrete property shopping categories to jumpstart the journey for the first time user.

Hypotheses
  1. By progressively disclosing the most important factors (location, price and bedrooms) we can encourage users to apply filters to their search and reduce cognitive load
  2. Users will recognise the value and purpose of community guides to help them decide where to live
  3. For returning users who applied filters, we can display chips that represent their previous search which can be used as “mini filters” when altering a chosen category
LO-Fi WIREFRAMES

We quickly sketched a few lo-fi wireframes to discuss these ideas with engineers to understand the feasibility & what can be done in a better way.

USER TESTING

I was responsible to set up testing plan and Denys designed hi-fi prototype to make sure we test riskiest assumptions before development

🧐
Buy/Rent dropdown
ASSUMPTION
Users will find where it is located and be able to change it when their intent changes.
Result
Some users did not see this selector.
😊
Default filter
ASSUMPTION
Users will be overwhelmed if they are shown the full array of filters available.
Result
Users have no issue to understand and use the default filter and it suits their needs.
😟
Community guides
ASSUMPTION
Users will recognise the value and purpose of educational information in a transactional context.
Result
Users thought it’s an ad or they completely ignored this section.
🧐
Quick filter/ Chip
ASSUMPTION
Users will recognise that filter chips represent their previous search and that they can be used as “quick filters” when altering said category.
Result
Users understood the feature and usability quickly.
😊
Sorting
ASSUMPTION
Users will be able to sort through results
Result
Users have no issue to find and use sorting to help them find their needs.
😊
New filter usability
ASSUMPTION
Users will be able to use the new filter screen overall.
Result
Users didn't know the area is clickable.
Detailed testing Plan & results

Scenario: Imagine you just arrived in Dubai for a new job, you have to find a temporary place to live in Dubai Marina.‍

Passed = user was able to complete the task in a reasonable amount of time with little to no guidance
Neutral = user took a while to complete task and needed some light guidance
Fail = user was unable to complete task in a reasonable amount of time if at all

General impression: You have to find a temporary place to live in. You’ve just downloaded the app. Take 30 seconds to have a look and tell us what do you think?

Result: 5/7 Positive;  2/7 Neutral
‍Validating: Buy/Rent dropdown, Default filter, Community guide, Quick filters/Chips, Price slider histogram, Scrollable property pictures on SERP

Task 1: You want to live in Dubai Marina and your budget is around 50,000 to 80,000 AED per year for you and your kids. Find a property based on these conditions

Result: 5/7 Passed; 2/7 Neutral  
‍Validating: Buy/Rent Selector, Default Filter

Task 2: You want to see the latest properties first, what can you do from here?

Result: 6/7 Passed; 1/7 Failed    
Validating: Sorting

Task 3: You want to live in the penthouse and increase your budget to 70,000 to 100,000 AED. What would you do from here?

Result:  4/7 Passed; 3/7 Neutral    
Validating: New Filter Screen, Mini Filters/Chips, Price Slider Histogram

Task 4: Your brother is going to move to Dubai next month, you think it’s better to live together and see how it goes. Try to find a property with 3 bedrooms without furniture from here

Result: 5/7 Passed; 2/7 Neutral              
Validating: New Filter Screen, Mini Filters/Chips, Bedroom Selector

Task 5: You are going to have a car in 2 weeks, you think maybe it would be a good idea to move to Dubai Sports City to save some money. Try to find a property based on these conditions

Result: 6/7 Passed; 1/7 Neutral    
‍Validating: New Filter Screen, Mini Filters/Chips

Task 6: Since you are not familiar with Dubai Sports City, you would like to know more about this area. What would you like to do here?

Result: 2/7 Passed; 2/7 Neutral; 3/7 Failed    
Validating: Community Guide

Task 7: Your company raised your pay, so now you think maybe it’s time to have your own property. What would you like to do here?

Result: 3/7 Passed; 3/7 Neutral; 1/7 Failed  
Validating: Buy/Rent Selector

Task 8: After interacting with Property Finder, how would you describe Property Finder?

We want to understand if our redesign is on-brand. However, as most of the users in the region might not use English as their mother tongue we decided to use images as the options rather than words and ask them the reason behind their answers.

NExt steps
Overall, the testing results showed positive feedback from users. We will fix some usability issues and define MVP based on the user’s need and development efforts.
QUick WIns
  1. Buy/Rent Dropdown - Users ignored the feature. Add more space around to make it more prominent.
  2. Community Guide - We should add a label to explain the value of the information and make it more relevant to users.
  3. Price Slider Histogram - Users don’t really understand the histogram and it takes too much effort to develop as well. Let’s simplify to a slider only.
  4. Scrollable property pictures on result page - Users don’t really notice the carousel, we should make the dots a bit more visible
Lessons Learned
We showed our sketches to engineering team pretty early in the stage. We did not realise that quite a lot of functionalities in our first version were not feasible at that moment. Glad we talked to engineers as soon as we had some ideas. Next time we could also invite some of the engineers into the discussion and ideate with designers!
Next project

Home Buying Journey

mengchlin@gmail.com
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