Bluestone Properties
The Client
Bluestone Properties is a vertically integrated private real-estate company that owns and manages dozens of apartment communities nationwide.
The Challenge
Bluestone Properties needed a complete redesign of their internal BlueSky application, which is used by a variety of employees for lead management, daily management of apartment communities, marketing initiatives, and more.
The interface needed to be re-imagined to leverage the application's powerful back-end functionality in a way that better serves the needs of users. It needed to be redesigned in such a way that would allow it to also be sold as a white-label SaaS product in the future.
A particular challenge was accommodating a variety of user personas who have vastly differing skill levels, roles, and training. Some users are highly trained & educated “power” users who handle a variety of complex company-wide initiatives through the application, but the majority of daily usage is by an employee demographic with high turnover rate, who are not particularly tech-savvy. In addition to providing all tools necessary for power users and admins, the application needed to be designed in such a way that new users can start using this complex application immediately with minimal training.
My Roles
- Enterprise Product Design
- UX Architecture
- Competitor Analysis
- UX Audit
- Heuristic Analysis
- Generation of requirements & UX documentation
- Copywriting
- Visual Design
- Coded Prototyping
Research & Planning
UX Audit
A UX audit of the existing application included all of the following:
- Heuristic analysis
- Detailed page-by-page analysis
- Assessment of historical usage via google analytics data
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis was performed between BlueSky and a leading competitor with sizeable market share.
User Research
User survey feedback provided valuable insights that were combined with findings from the Competitor Analysis and UX Audit to guide requirements for the design phase.
Designing the Solution
Information Architecture
User needs include the ability to perform ongoing daily management of dozens of apartment complexes, to conduct marketing activities, to view performance metrics, and to manage employees. However, the most frequently-used functions of the application are for lead management & conversion of leads into new residents. UX architecture was tailor-made to allow easy access to all functions while being optimized for the most frequently-used tasks.
UX/UI Design
The UX/UI Design process included all of the following:
- Wireframing and creation of mockups
- Creation of a sophisticated design guide that:
- Leveraged color coding & iconography to help users quickly identify time-sensitive items
- Defined styling of all page components, typography, and color usage
- Comprehensive UX documentation
- Integration of functionality that allows users to rapidly claim & respond to new leads in a matter of minutes
- Design of an interface for users to conduct conversations with leads via a variety of methods (email, SMS, & phone) that are presented as a single chronological thread
- Scheduling & calendar management
- Revision to internal processes involving lead statuses & resident management
Through an iterative process, the design was finalized to fulfill all user needs and achieve all goals of stakeholders/subject matter experts.
Prototyping
Once the design was finalized, the client had me create a fully coded prototype via HTML/CSS/Javascript that was used for the basis of development implementation. Given their limited development resources, this allowed the development team to integrate the application into their production environment in a fraction of the time it would have taken otherwise.
Along with the coded prototype, I provided the client with documentation of code conventions so developers could easily adhere to the Design Guide.
Outcome/Conclusions
Users find the new application to be vastly easier to use on all devices. (desktop, tablet, mobile) Onboarding of new employees is now optimized into a quicker & easier process. Leads are being more efficiently converted into new apartment residents. Users find administrative tasks to be simpler and less time-consuming. Overall efficiency has increased and employee satisfaction is at an all-time high. This project was considered to be a resounding success.
