Pocket is Australia's first fully featured mobile CRM app for real estate agents. The objective was to give the users a simple yet functional, fully integrated CRM App powered by the existing Rex desktop software. I collaborated with the Experience design lead on extensive research, product ideation, and product design to bring the app to the IOS and Android market. This involved working together with various development teams and delivering continuous updates to the CEO and CTO of Rex Software.  

Research

User Voice

Rex user voice panel is a platform that gives users an opportunity to give their initial first impression of the idea of having a Rex app. We gathered and consolidated over 300 user responses to help us drive our planning phase and understand the user’s goals and essential needs. This helped us formulate the survey questions and comprehensively understand the current Rex users.

Quantitative Research

We structured the survey with multiple-choice and open-ended questions that would take roughly 15 minutes to complete. Firstly, we wanted to know the user’s role in the agency and then look further into their daily activities, such as how much time they spend out of the office, what information they need the most and how they interact with their clients, etc. We found several interesting insights - 81% of users use IOS, and agents spend roughly 4 hours outside the office. During that time, the agents mainly undertake private inspections, appraisals, OFI and prospecting. The feedback also showed that the users want their contacts accessible from the system and the ability to send documents, view reminders and attributes of properties.

Interviews & Observation 

We visited multiple agencies and interviewed over 12 participants, including sales agents, admins, managers and PAs. We were also fortunate enough to go on a stock run with an agency. This consists of all agents driving together to view the agency’s listing. They do this to inspect the condition and interior design of the property as well as to call any buyers they think might be interested. During the interviews and field trips, we filmed most of the experiences with a GoPro camera; it allowed us to engage more with the participants and simplify the information-synthesising process.

Initially, we made numerous assumptions for every experience a real estate agent undergoes, and we challenged ourselves to map out what we believed a sales agent experiences by carrying out a card sorting activity before our expeditions. Therefore after every field trip, we re-examined the daily activities of each participant through the card sorting exercise, and it showed that the age, work experience, type of agency, size of agency, and location significantly affect the overall approach to real estate.

Ideation

According to our research, we began iterating the contact records and listing record workflows. This generated a broad set of ideas focusing firstly on records and eventually on the list views. We investigated multiple solutions before moving on to low-fidelity wireframes.

Wireframing 

As we wireframed, we tested the experience using a click-through prototype to get conceptual feedback from our low and high-fidelity wireframes that proved early perceived value from the customers before we launched. We also created a human interface company guide for mobile and desktop patterns. This stage in the process was extremely helpful for us and mainly for the development team as it provided a reusable and consistent component ecosystem.

The Solution