Realgraph
Online Commercial Real Estate database
My Role
UX Researcher & Designer
Tools
Sketch
Principle
Methods
Survey
Competitive Analysis
Sketching
High-fidelity Mockups
Prototype
Observer Media was looking to spin off Realgraph, a database within Commercial Observer, its commercial real estate news site.
Realgraph was a tool that enabled users to find and contribute commercial real estate properties, deals and organizations, and people in the industry.
I was brought on to design Realgraph as a separate website from Commercial Observer.
I worked closely with Observer’s CTO in finalizing the experience and with a developer through its development until it shipped into production.
I wanted to identify any possible pain points users ran into while using Realgraph on Commercial Observer, so I tried arriving onto the tool myself. It was hard to find.
There were only two ways to access Realgraph: by scrolling to the bottom of a Commercial Observer news story and clicking a thin banner, or by clicking on Realgraph in the footer’s About section. Realgraph appeared to be more of a feature within a site, one users might accidentally stumble into, as opposed to a tool they would actively seek.
Realgraph could better communicate the value propositions to using it.
To answer Abby Covert’s Usability Heuristic, “Can a user easily describe the value?” I scored Realgraph a 75%.
Users were presented 4 calls to action to contribute to the database at the top of the site, along with a banner at the bottom. But aside from mentioning that users could connect with other commercial real estate professionals, it did not clearly present to them the value of registering to the website and contributing to the database.
I wanted to get a better idea of what commercial real estate professionals needed from Realgraph and what tools they were using. I created and posted a survey on several forums, including Reddit’s /realestatetechnology subreddit.
Survey respondents said they used CoStar and LoopNet, which were also among the top commercial real estate tools according to Alexa. I also looked into TheRealDeal’s TRData, and into similar databases in other spaces, such as Crunchbase and Angelist. Some patterns started to emerge:
LoopNet, Crunchbase, and AngelList employed social proof when proposing their value.
They displayed company logos to prove that reputable companies were among their users.
LoopNet and TRData offered commercial real estate professionals a robust search experience.
While Crunchbase and AngelList also offered users an extensive search experience, LoopNet and TRData’s advanced search was a guide on what a commercial real estate search experience needed to provide users.
CoStar, LoopNet, Crunchbase, and AngelList demonstrated their value by clearly communicating the tasks users could accomplish on them.
Realgraph tried to guide users to contribute deals, organizations, properties, and people to the database, but these were all a single task: contributing. We also wanted users to see the value in exploring the database through search.
Crunchbase, AngelList, and TRData offered users a sense of navigation.
Realgraph did not provide users a quick way of viewing a single type of contribution (properties, deals, organizations, and people) at a time, instead serving all of these on its “homepage.” Providing a navigation like these other tools could help users quickly filter these contributions, and establish a sense of place within Realgraph.
In my early wireframes, I thought of using a navigation panel even in the landing page to start creating that sense of place.
But we determined that the landing page was for new users, working as an onboarding that would guide them directly to the tasks they could complete on Realgraph.
With a different intention for the landing page in mind, I designed the following experience:
Social Proof
We decided to present what companies our members came from and their professional roles, based on what they were telling us upon registering. This served as an another way of attracting people to join Realgraph.
Advanced Search
Members can now perform advanced searches for different transactions (sales, leases, financings).
Value Propositions
Realgraph now explains what members can do on tool and the value it can bring to them.
Clear Navigation
Except for the landing page, a navigation panel is now present site-wide, allowing members to quickly filter database entries by type.
Landing Page
Explore Page
Filters – Sales
Filters – Leases
Filters – Financings
Profile
