Observational Behavioral Studies / Usability Testing

Zillow Co-Shopping: Image Tagging + Chat

I led end-to-end research to understand the key pain points and goals of co-shopping partners, and informed solutioning towards mobile feature improvements to faciliate and centralize communication between partners.

Project Type
Concept development proposed for Zillow

Timeline
4.5 weeks

Understand (1 week)
Synthesize (1 week)
Prototype (1.5 weeks)
Test (1 week)

Team
Adhiraj Singh (UX Design, Prototyping)

Methods
Desk Research
UX Flow Audit
User Interviews
Observational Behavioral Studies
Moderated Remote Usability Testing

Tools
Figma
Zoom
Google Survey
Maze

Challenge

86% Zillow users report shopping with a partner, spouse, or housemate when looking for a house. But the platform is optimized for individual searchers, forcing users who are shopping together out of the platform to host their discussion around listings and showings. Zillow has taken initial steps to address this, but in our Internal UX Audit and Primary Research, we found users still felt limited, unable to have rich conversations they could easily keep track of.

Methodology

I scoped the research plan (outlining research objectives, timeline, participant criteria, discussion guide), created artifacts to communicated findings, and collaborated closely with my design partner to prototype the feature opportunities defined. I recruited Zillow users between the company's target demographic of 25-40, who had successfully closed on a house using the Zillow platform in the last 6 months. 

Foundational / Discovery + Framing

• Assess current state utilizing UX Flow Audit of how co-shopping searching is conducted today
• Conducted 5 1:1 interviews with Zillow co-shopping partners to understand pain points, motivations, frustrations in the end-to-end home search
  
• Faciliated unmoderated behavioral observational study via user screenshot to observe partner search discussion and identify tools used
• Established 2 user personas of primary and secondary partners with a combined journey map to distinguish pain points and opportunities
  
• Synthesized main findings into actionable opportunity areas 
• Co-crafted feature priorization matrix by effort and impact to determine suitable design directives

Evaluative / Testing + Validation

• Conducted 3 moderated (remote) usability testing sessions with Zillow co-shopping users via Zoom and screen share to test V1 prototype

Key Insights

1. Partners struggle to feel aligned with each other

In a typical co-searching partner dynamic, the supporting partner can feels left out at critical stages of the searching process, especially if conversations are held digitally, making it harder for them to align and move forward with a listing

Opportunity Area

Creating “real-time” feel with asynchronous feedback on listings so partners feel aligned

2. No place for centralized discussions in-app

Discussions about listings pre and post-showing are highly varied — from ranking, raw thoughts, and a pros and cons list — these have been forced out of the platform due to the inability to have thoughtful conversations about listings in-app

Opportunity Area

Centralize discussion-based functions of how iMessage is currently being leveraged within Zillow app

3. Images play a crucial part in decision-making

Users go back to the images from the listing and their own post-showing throughout the search and closing process but are not designed with ease of share-ability

Opportunity Area

Leverage image gallery feature as more prominent in-app
Incorporate personal media as part of listing

How might we create a co-shopping experience on Zillow that is optimized for centralizing feedback with context to aid better decision-making?

Solution

We proposed 2 new features for the Zillow co-shopping experience — Image Tagging and an expanded Chat functionality that helps optimize discovery, discussion, and decision-making between partners.

See full prototype of the solution here!

Outcome

• Validated user need in future usage of our proposed Image Tagging and enhanced Chat features as helpful in users to optimize their search process for increased efficiency and context
• Created potential Product Roadmap around optimizing other feature opportunities in the co-Shopping experience
• Formalized archetypes and journey mapping that distinguish Primary and Secondary Shopping partner profiles, something that had only been casually defined in prior user documentation

Next Steps

• Incorporate user feedback on UX visual + flow improvements - re-test with users to see if changes improves their experiencce
• Hypothesize how we might include other stakeholders as part of the decision-making process

Project Reception

Lorenzo Torres
Principal UX Researcher
Zillow

“I recently had the opportunity to review a project that Sarah Young and Adhiraj Singh completed on co-shopping and real estate.  Overall, I was impressed with their process driven approach, thoroughness, and insight in identifying an opportunity and creating solutions.  It is clear that they sought to deeply understand the complexities of co-shopping through their research in the discovery phase ultimately targeting an opportunity that we have similarly seen in our research here at Zillow.  Not only did they stop at identifying a series of issues and opportunities but they continued with the design process, ideating potential solutions, and ultimately narrowing their focus on those they hypothesized to be most effective.

 This was quite an ambitious project and to see this taken on independently without consultation from Zillow design or research and in such a short time-frame was truly impressive.”

⟡ Disclaimer: This is an abbreviated version of the case study. For full details, feel free to reach out here. 

SARAH YOUNG

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