ZILLOW TODAY SCREEN

The Today Screen was a major initiative for the Premier Agent product. It would allow Zillow to move from being a media company to managing the entire home transaction process.

Business Case

Transition from a media company to owning the entire home transaction process

Go from a total addressable market (TAM) of $2B to opening up a TAM of $100B

KPIs:

  • Increase 15-day work with rate

  • Increase feature usage and engagement in Premier Agent app

  • Reduce support calls

  • Increase session times

Zillow Premier Agent process map

Why was this needed?

  • Zillow’s Premier Agent platform was functioning as a lead intake system

    • Allowed real estate agents would to leads from Zillow.com and transfer them to their tracking systems

  • Product discovery and engagement were performing lower than KPIs defined

  • Support calls were significantly higher than they should have been.

  • Zillow was also transitioning from a media company to managing the overall real estate transaction process This would open up their TAM from $2-5B/year to ~$100B/year.

    • The system’s architecture at that time did not allow for this scaling.

Example research findings from review

Phase 1: Research, Discovery and Problem Definition

I kicked off the process by immediately diving into discovery methodologies, including:

  • Stakeholder interviews

  • Review of prior research

  • Heuristic reviews

  • IA Mapping

  • Collecting anecdotal evidence from Sales and Ops

What We Found

Overall, real estate agents had a number of home-grown tracking systems they created, which they were very proud of. They wanted Zillow to act as an expert partner, and provide “handheld guidance,” but not overstep.

The Hypothesis

We needed a dashboard that would allow us to…

“create a scalable and extensible framework to provide guidance for real estate agents throughout the Premier Agent CRM”

Dashboard concept wireframes

Phase 1: Process and Collaboration

Communication

Next step: Pitch the idea to our product management group.

  • I worked heavily with design and product leadership to decide on communication strategy and avoid prior communication issues.

  • We decided on a series of low-fidelity wireframes to convey the concept, while avoiding any connection to a final design. 

Concept

  • Zillow’s data allowed for a task-oriented dashboard that would help agents understand their Next Best Action to move home buyers to the next step in the buying process. 

  • The dashboard would provide context around the buyer and what they need, in addition to which task will be most impactful for the agent.

Outcome

Another squad picked up the work! This was the first design-launched initiative added to the roadmap in over 5 years.

Inbox Rethink research concept

What Happened Next

Over the next 6 months…

Dashboard

  • Squad who picked up the dashboard work built a pipeline view showing how many buyers they had in each step of the pipeline. Session length and engagement were lower than determined KPIs, and feedback research showed that it wasn’t working well as a dashboard, but would be a very effective report.

Communications Research

  1. In-person contextual inquiries with agents: I partnered with our director of research to sit with real estate agents in their offices to understand how they manage their businesses and leads. We focused largely on how they were managing their day-to-day tasks.

  2. Inbox rethink concept validation: Concept validation testing re-imagining standard email systems and organization. We focused on the narrative around each home buyer, as opposed to providing the real estate agent messages in chronological order. This research was very successful.

Given the results from the dashboard implementation, a cross-functional team decided to revisit the original dashboard proposal.

“Concept Car” Design

Phase 2: Process and Collaboration

Collaborated With

VP of Product, 1 Director of Product, PM, Sr. Design Manager, Director of Design

Next Steps (Concept Car)

We rethought the original proposal using the research and findings from the prior 6 months. The new wireframes centered around agent workflows, and rethought the app IA from a North Star perspective. 

This proposal was approved through the C-Level!

Outcome

At this point, a designer on my team picked up the rest of the work. With my guidance, he:

  • Thought through interactions

  • Worked with research on concept validation and next steps for iterations

  • Partnered with product management to determine iterations and plans from MVP to North Star implementation

Final Today Screen Design

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