Real Estate Form Streamlining · 2021 · Lead Product Designer
EasyPeady
In late 2020, agents were overwhelmed by COVID related paperwork, especially the PEAD form required for every home viewing. I led the design and launch of EasyPeady, a web app that streamlined form filling.
- Developed and launched in under a quarter
- 15% increase in cross product engagement
- Generated a pipeline of new customers
Lead Product Designer
Work includedUX, UI, User Research
- How might we allow an agent to send multiple PEAD forms at once?
- How might we use our MLS integration to auto-populate key agent and buyer information?
- How might we alert agents when a form is signed by all parties?
- How might we automatically send the completed form to all parties?
The problem
Paperwork vs clients
Agents are always in a balancing act between paperwork and face time with clients. SkySlope data showed buyers spend about 10 weeks searching and view a median of 9 homes. We needed a solution to help free up time for core responsibilities.
Who touches the form
Buyer agents faced the bulk of the responsibility. Buyers wanted to sign what needed signing and get on with the viewing. Seller agents just wanted property access to be easy. Our research told us to put buyer agents' needs first.
Buyer agents
Balancing time spent on paperwork against time spent advising and supporting clients. A simple way to complete paperwork and stay compliant to free up their schedule.
Buyers
They do not want to work through volumes of paperwork to view homes. They want to sign what needs signing to close a transaction.
Seller agents
The same paperwork and client time trade-off, plus an interest in making property access easy enough to encourage buyers.
The team and the clock
A PM, a UX researcher, a UX/UI designer, and six developers. The PEAD-V was a COVID requirement. Given the nature of the timeliness of the issue we needed an MVP by the end of Q1 2021, ideally sooner.
What to ship
The MVP had to cover sending one or multiple forms for one or more buyers. Sending it all in one batch with the seller agent getting a copy.
Research
Testing value
I co-wrote a PRD with the PM to capture the problem statements and our MVP user flow, then we went to test if the tool had business viability.
Agents disliked the form but understood why it existed. Most had a workaround, seller agents had several home addresses on one form. Some agents informally agreed to send it after a showing. Brokerages rarely asked for it and rarely opened it.
| 53% to 72% | of SkySlope transactions used a PEAD form, 2020 to 2021 |
| +46% | buyer agents more likely than seller agents to report difficulty |
| Every | agent interviewed stated that having the form on hand was very important |
| 1 | Our competitor had gated the form behind a paid-membership |
The problem and the business case held, and the MVP pointed at supporting buyer agents.
- The call
- Scope the MVP to buyer agents.
- Why
- They were 46% more likely than seller agents to report difficulty.
- What it cost
- Seller agent use cases stayed out of the MVP.
Flows
The ideal experience
I mapped who acts at each step and when each email fires.
Who actsTime →
Who acts at each step, from initial send to completed envelope.
Four ways to split it
Buyer agents wanted one envelope to sign, then individual PEADs sent to each seller agent.
Where the emails go
I mapped every notification the flow depends on and handed it to the team.
The PM and I settled on splitting in the backend, with a fallback if we encountered technical constraints.
- The call
- Split the completed envelope in the backend.
- Why
- It removed the PDF split agents were doing manually.
- What it cost
- A fallback we had to support just in case.
Scoring the options with engineering
I ran a brainstorm with product and engineering. Developers scored each solution's build complexity 1 to 5 while designers scored its UX, we chose flows that were cheapest to build with the best UX.
The app
From real world steps to app functionality
With the user flow agreed on, I translated it into all key app user flows, including the existing user use cases and validation.
Build one envelope
Add every property the client will visit, then invite the buyer once.
From the forms filling through signing.
Who is visiting
The key screen for filling in client information.
Try the PEAD flow below.
The pivot
A free marketing app outside the ecosystem
Mid-development, SkySlope shifted strategy from this tool being a paid feature inside our existing software, Forms, to a free standalone app. The new goal was to capture new customers. That meant instead of just authenticating users with existing accounts we had to also support net new users.
Known accounts, existing navigation, a paid product context.
An experience for new customers and existing customers in our ecosystem.
- The call
- Rebrand mid-development.
- Why
- The development team was already ramped up.
- What it cost
- An authentication problem found late in user testing.
I partnered with the visual designer on new branding, redesigned the key screens and created a basic style guide. This allowed development to quickly spin up without blockers. I designed the UI alongside development, iterating as we built and clearing UX blockers via drop-in calls while trying to get ahead.
Brand and system
The flow after
Launch
We shipped the MVP and put the app in front of a small group of agents. Their feedback drove the next round of improvements and surfaced the authentication problem.
Impact
SkySlope's other products saw a 15% increase in usage, the app generated a pipeline of new customers, and it became the groundwork for a future fully fledged product called Breeze.
Retrospective
The fast schedule led to one high impact oversight. An authentication problem surfaced only in user testing after the pivot. More thorough testing would have helped us discover it before launch.