DRH & Local Realtors Partnership App

The DRH app was created for realtors to have access to DRH’s latest inventory and details on sales and commissions. This partnership with local realtors through the app allows realtors to stay current on available homes & incentives from the convenience of their phones.

To protect the privacy of the company, I’ve limited and omitted some information and images in this case study.

Company

D. R. Horton

My Role

UX Researcher, Interviewing, UX Designer, Prototyping

Tools

Adobe Illustration, Adobe XD

Team

Individual, Marketing Team

The Challenge

We recognized immediately that there were gaps in connection with how realtors discover DRH homes for their clients and how DRH’s provides this information. To kick off this project, I worked with members of the marketing team to set up calls and connect with several sales and marketing managers from across the country. We needed to understand what their input on working with realtors and what is needed to bridge the gap. 

From our internal research with other team members & stakeholders, we understood the need to sell more homes and move standing inventory. For the external research, I reached out to local KW realtors for interviews. I gathered that most did not work with us because they did not have information or details regarding our homes and no access to our network unless a client brings them to a model home. This specific feedback from both parties led us to our challenge and discovery. 

Design Challenge

Create an optimized and efficient solution to directly connect realtors to DRH’s products and realtor services

The Process

We utilized the Design Thinking process and formatted it to work with in the constraints of this project-

Understanding & Discovery

Research

The goal with interviewing realtors was to understand what they needed from us and how we could best deliver.

 Example Questions: 

  • How do you find new homes for your clients?
  • How do you build new relationships with builders?
  • What applications do you use for discovering leads or available homes?

The interviews also led to discovering that realtors really care about receiving their commissions, so being informed on the commission rates per house and how to achieve them was extremely important. And the more that realtors are fully aware of DRH’s higher commission rates, they would be more motivated to bring their people in.

Other Discoveries:

Realtors also spend a lot of time in the car. Therefor mobile needs to be extremely easy to navigate and able to find available homes fast.

One of the most common occurrences across every interaction with realtors was some form of misunderstanding in the process of selling a new home.

Define

Realtors spend a lot of time out of the office

Realtors spend most of their time on the road and at homes. The app was designed to facilitate a busy professional always on the go. From homes to breakdowns on the DRH new home selling process, everything they might need can be accessed easily on the app.

Too much misinformation and lack of knowledge

Not everyone is familiar with the new home process, including realtors. The DRH process needed to be clearly defined and easily accessible to realtors.

Money, money, money.

Knowing the commission rates was of upmost importance to realtors. It is a huge motivating factor for real estate agents. A high commission home, when seen by enough agents, does not sit unsold very long. This app includes commission increase notifications.

Accessibility and the ability to cobrand

One thing we were not able to deliver on with our MVP Realtor app was the ability for Realtors to cobrand marketing materials or access homes on their schedule. Realtors have tight schedules and being able to come and go as they please was important. We will continue to work to make this particular feature available in possible upcoming versions.

Persona Development

With the insights from our research and defined needs and goals for the app, I developed a primary persona demonstrating our target users-

Ideate & Explore

Based on the opportunity areas I summarized, I defined FridgeMate’s product structure. Users can view overall status and soon-to-expire food items on the homescreen;they could add items by scanning the receipt; Track expiry dates of each food item in inventory, and tap in to see more details as well as storage tips and recipes.Users can mark the food finished in both inventory and detail screen.

Final Deliverables 

Designing the app has been a challenging and rewarding journey. It was clear from the onset that the major challenge would be to provide realtors with a platform that they could trust. Once we understood the needs of the users through our initial surveys and face to face conversations. The solution was clear. We were able to design an app that would streamline the process between realtors and sales offices, while providing efficient access to home listings in real time, sales events the commission rates.

For the future, some actions could be developed such as registering a client or buyer directly into the app. That way if the buyer returns to the home, the realtor will still be listed under DRH as the buyer’s agent.

I would describe the whole process from start to finish as pretty fun and exciting. It was great to work with the KW team and hearing their thoughts on the app design.

Lessons Learned

Removing Bias

It is extremely important for the user not to get stuck or confused while using any app. Therefore, the main focus should not solely be on what our team or the stakeholders want to see. From the alerts to registering for events in the app, the flow should be seamless.

While working through the interaction details for the app, it was very tempting to create more modules and elements than maybe needed. But, working with the teams, allowed for us to use existing solutions that could be adapted slightly and still provide efficiency.

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