Applying a new design process & a first-gen map search feature
UI Project
The task I was given
2016. One of my first larger scale projects as the lead designer at the agency. This Minnesota-based brokerage client was in need of our custom Wordpress website product, but had a central feature added to the scope of work. They wanted to address their own client’s need to shop for homes within desirable school districts.
What was the planing process like?
The first part of why this project was important is that my initial projects were yielding a lot of post-launch changes. Before this I thought, “If I just design how the company wants me to design, everything will be OK.“ It was apparent we weren’t planning correctly and they partly hired me to identify flaws internally and recommend improvements.
Initially we took on kickoff notes and delivered every page after a week and refined it with a 2-3 notes to the client’s preference, which was a very fast-food way of doing things, but kept my employer happy with the time efficiency, but yield the aforementioned post-design trauma of additional long-term work that felt like redesigning core areas.
It may seem normal by today’s design standards, but breaking our process into smaller digestible, focused areas that were paramount to the project became our new process. We put time into the process thinking it would help reduce the amount of post-launch design requests.
The new process after kickoff was streamlined to only wireframe 4 screens (web/moble so 8 screens) that had the majority of widgets across the website. After approving wireframes, visual design would involve approving the art direction of the home page only. Then we would design the second-level navigation pages, then the third, while simultaneously designing active/empty states and any other animations.
What was the production process like?
The second reason that made this project important was that I had a reasonably complex map search feature to design, which involved drawing polygons. At this point in 2016, Zillow and Compass didn’t have design patterns that were the industry standard that could help give inspiration to the most usable user flow. It was either allow users to draw/remove shapes that indicated school districts or simply add text areas to the communities and property pages that would be farther out of the user’s search criteria than our client would want it to be.
What did I deliver?
We delivered a site that drove mostly Minnesotan families towards a map search where they could determine the housing market within desirable school districts.
“Full project spec: 2 Home pages (Company/Agent Templates) 6 Archives for Properties, Agents, Communities, Blogs and the corresponding sister pages to the archives at the third level, plus multi-purpose sidebar and full width layouts, 404 = 15ish page sets.”
Broadly speaking, we navigated a new process that balanced form, function and incorporated their brand to the degree that suited the medium. All the post launch changes were new features they didn’t have the time or budget to tackle in the short-term, which was another huge win for us as a company. And seven plus years on, we still have a healthy relationship with the client with a site that has held up since our initial design which is a particularly proud milestone for me. I generally tell clients that we aren’t designing just for the present, but trying to foresee what challenges you will have ahead so we can build something you will be satisfied with to the point that chopping and changing becomes a luxury rather than a necessity.
“This was an early example of finding my voice to identify an operational problem and have the confidence to voice a concern and offer a thoughtful solution.”
— Insecure 20-something Jason.