WALLY ai: REAL ESTATE APP
Wally AI is an real estate agent with AI-assistance that transforms how people will find homes in the San Francisco Bay Area.
CLIENT
WALLY AI, PRODUCT MANAGER ACCELERATOR
MYROLE
UX RESEARCHER & DESIGNER
TEAM
DEVELOPERS, DATA SCIENTISTS, PROJECT MANAGERS
TIMELINE
11 WEEKS IN SPRING 2025
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Have you ever wondered why Zillow pays Redfin $100 million per year for their listing? The answer is simple, the rental market is broken. Even industry giants are desperate to consolidate data for the rental market.
The Solution? WallyAI, an AI leasing agent that will revolutionize how you find and lease properties in this challenging market.
MY ROLE
I developed the user experience, including all product research, design, prototyping and team communication. I also develop frameworks for WallyAI that's fully engaging and expand its user base beyond its core demographic.
CONCEPTUALIZATION
Before approaching design, I analyzed competing real estate apps out in the market to identify key problems users are facing.
I developed a user journey map, uncover pain points through user interviews, facilitate team ideation sessions, and collaborated on research synthesis to present our key findings to internal company stakeholders.
1) Market Analysis
2) Contextual Inquiries
3) Critical Incident Technique
4) Experience Models
RESEARCH METHODS
To understand how people use other competitor's service, I interviewed over 55 people who used competing real estate servicesin the last two months. The interview consists of two parts- a customer survey and a retrospective questioning exercise - and helped us answer the following questions:
KEY FOCUS AREAS
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What challenge do people have when it comes to searching for a rental home?
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How important is commute time in your rental location?
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How did you search for your rental home?
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Which filters were the most important during you search?
Key findings were conducted after gathering the most common trends in our user interviews.
THE PERSONA
After figuring out the customer's pain point, risk assessment and several research in the Real Estate rental market. I created a persona that aims towards young renters that are struggling to find a home in the Bay area. Based on the research several customer's pain points, I've aligned the persona's habits based on the aforementioned research and conclusions.
USER JOURNEY
Once user interviews were conducted, I created a user journey map outlining how potential user will navigate through the WallyAI service.
With experience models & established market trends allows me to extract actionable insights related to user expectations, personality elements, technology use and common frustrations with real estate search in the market.
DESIGN
I sketched the initial design for WallyAI's page. Since I was short on time, I quickly developed several digital wireframes for the site.
Low-fidelity wireframes were then created and later incorporated into the WallyAI service, where my test participants can interact and perform tasks for the usability of this DIY app.
After I lay out the groundworks for the Low-Fidelity wireframes, I sought feedbacks from industry veterans on which areas of the design we can improve on.
Mid-Fidelity wireframes were added, Map feature was also incorporated from our MVP scope.
I originally proposed a mobile App version of WallyAI. Following our already established color schemes and style guide. I quickly created a low, mid and high fidelity wireframe of the mobile app.
Due to time constraint of the project, the mobile app was scrapped in favor for the web application.
Proposed Low and Hi-fidelity wireframes of WallyAI's mobile App interface.
For the layout design, I went and looked for references from other competing services out in the market. Here are some sources that I gathered for inspirations.
USABILITY TESTING
During this process, the design had gone through multiple ideations. I conducted several usability testing with the initial design to gauge user feedbacks. This is important in order refine our scope into the MVP process.
ITERATION: SEARCH & FILTER INTERFACE
I conducted usability testing with 6 participants, no necessarily real estate experience was required. Some issues with I gathered during the usability testing phase were:
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Left menu HUD is too wide
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Home type's icon is also too huge
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Lack of home feature/ map
ITERATION: MAP INTERFACE
Another issue that the usability group addressed was the map interface. Here are some issues that I refined were:
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Lack of map information
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Terminology confused users
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Map does not look interactable
ITERATION: PROPERTY DETAIL
Property Details page was another concern brought up by participants of the usability testing group. Here are some issues that I refined:
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Map section should fit across the box
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Request a tour section should be moved on top of the map but below the picture previews
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Lack of general information about the property itself.
STYLE
After the completion of the 3rd and final iteration of WallyAI, I created a style guide so that developers not only understands it but also to reinforce WallyAI's brand as a whole.
I chose blue for WallyAI as according to market research, blue reinforce trust, honestly and reliability. We wanted WallyAI, according to the younger demographic out there to trust WallyAI's service to deliver an easier rental searching experience.
WallyAI's style guide. We chose three different shades of blue as the primary colors, with a gradient of monochrome.
I chose blue for WallyAI as according to market research, blue reinforce trust, honestly and reliability. We wanted WallyAI, according to the younger demographic out there to trust WallyAI's service to deliver an easier rental searching experience.
FINAL DESIGN
SEARCH WITH CONFIDENCE
With Wally AI, a simple click of a button and customizable search option can help alleviate the stress while looking for your dream home.
AI ASSISTANCE THAT HELPS YOU THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS
Plan, explore and find effortlessly with Wally AI. The ultimate tool that will guide you in the wild west of the real estate market of San Francisco.
MARK YOUR MOVES EFFORTLESSLY
Find, schedule and request at ease without the hassle of wasting time looking through menus. With Wally AI, a simple click of a button will lead you to a home tour with confidence!
REFLECTION
Throughout the process, I encountered difficulties in several areas of my research. Among them was the user interviews, usability testing, and figuring out which style design that WallyAI should head towards.
The biggest obstacle I've run into was time management. Since this was my first real project, I had to learn everything on the get-go on my own. Despite this, I've learned a lot about the principles of UX from hierarchy to balancing. I also learned that UX isn't always going to have the answers to a problem. It's about understanding people and getting them to get their answers.
WallyAI was the first foray for me stepping into the industry. I hope from this Experience with WallyAI that I get to learn more about User Experience.
NEXT STEPS
While I was not able to deliver the initial MVP goal on time in the 12 week timespan, the research methodologies, personas, and design principles developed during this project also provide a replicable framework for enhancing other customer touchpoints for future case studies.
This case study exemplifies how thoughtful UX research and design can transform business constraints into opportunities for meaningful customer experience improvements.
Let's Work Together!
If you have a project in mind, or would like to chat, shoot me an email at
xiongjin631@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.