7 months (Nov 2023 - Jun 2024)
iOS App (MVP), Scalable component based style guide
Product Designer (Myself), Brand Designer, Development team
Pinhous, its Pinterest for real estate
Gap in the current market
54% of homebuyers find identifying the right property as the most difficult part of the home search process, and 34% struggle to find homes that fit their criteria.
A leading cause of dissatisfaction with agents is their inability to listen to homebuyers' home requirements. All of this contributes to a tireless ten-week search.
Less than 20% of listing photos contain detailed image-level data, despite images leading to 5.5x higher conversions. Visual search technology can help buyers find homes matching their specific preferences in a fraction of the time, making finding the right home easy for homebuyers and agents.
Reference: NAR 2022 report
Visual similarity model
Opportunity
Current online search platforms lack searching based on interior styles and home features. This is an opportunity to introduce and test visual board-style search powered by image tags and visual similarity CV models to help homebuyers find the right home.
Shortened search times, as much as 20%, and an Al-powered search can set Pinhous apart from the market competition.
Existing real estate apps failed to engage design-conscious buyers, offering generic features without catering to their personalized preferences. Create a Pinterest-like property browsing and style curation experience."
Challenge
How might we enhance property browsing experience by focusing on modern buyers' style and amenity preferences while improving search efficiency?
Considerations
Can we reduce the 10-week average home search-to-selection time by increasing user engagement with property listings?
Can this solve the agent-buyer communication hassles?
1.Secondary Research
Finding homes that fit buyer criteria is the second leading obstacle after home price
75% of online home search is carried out on a mobile phone. This is observed in Gen X and Millennials.
Competitor Analysis
Pinterest users profiling
Pinterest offers a powerful visual search option. There is an overlap in some of the demographic and psychographic data points between Pinterest users and the average home buyer in the United States.
Defining Target Users
Personas
Northstar Principles
Personalization
Visual-First Exploration
Simplified Decision-Making
CONCEPTS
PROTOTYPE TESTING AND FEEDBACK
REFLECTION AND LEARNINGS
Two main takeaways from this project
Learnability may vary with context: The user may need some help getting familiar with the interactions when the context changes
Progressive disclosure: The MVP need not be feature-rich. The users need to get familiar with the brand and brand value to accept new features better.