Zillow Virtual Staging

Pre-plan your future home's furniture layout, even if you can't visit it

Timeline

Jan-Mar. 2024

Role

UI UX Designer

Skills

Interview/User Research/Prototype

Team

Monan Qian/Sarath Chand Nekuri/Ran An/Muzi He

Project Overview

This project revolutionizes Zillow's user experience by introducing Virtual Staging with customizable furniture. lt allows users to tailor properties with different furniture styles, colors, and sizes, enhancing visualization and personalization. This feature positions Zillow as an innovative, technology-driven real estate exploration leader.

Goal Statement

Our goal is to enhance user engagement and satisfaction with Zillow. We aim to foster seamless visualization of digital property spaces.

Context

What is the problem?

Nowadays, people face significant challenges when renting or buying homes online. 82% of buyers find it easier to visualize a staged property for their buying decision. But 71% of homes are not staged.

Prototype and Iteration

Meet Our Solution

Product Benefits

Saving money and time

Immersed

In control

Switch between doll house view to floor plan

The dollhouse view allows users to explore the property as if walking through it. The floor plan view offers a clear property layout, making it easier to understand each room's spatial arrangement and dimensions.

Measure any room and plan everything precisely

This feature lets users visualizeisualizes how the furniture fits, ensuring spaces meet their needs. Accurate measurements, boosting transparency. The goal is to provide information universally in essential space.

Place furniture in your room

This feature allows users to change the colors of furniture and place them within any room in the property directly from the staging interface. Users can visually gauge the size of furniture items and assess their fit within the room.

Fully furnish the house with just one click using AI

The AI-powered instant staging feature creates professionally staged images with one click, enhancing property listings and helping buyers and renters visualize furnished spaces. It simplifies and speeds up virtual staging, making it accessible and efficient for all users.

Contact a realtor and get quick help during the virtual tour

Easily connect with a realtor during virtual tours with one click. This feature streamlines communication, allowing users to ask questions, schedule showings, and get personalized assistance for smarter, more efficient real estate decisions.

Who are the customers?

Continuing our journey, we identified 2 distinct user groups within the program. To comprehensively understand and enhance the experiences of each group, we actively engaged with them through methods such as interviews, intercepts, and observations, all while setting a clear project goal.

Buyers and renters

Agents

Research

Secondary Research

What's the current market size?

The US real estate software market size was evaluated at USD 2.8 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 5.4 billion by 2030

We conducted a competitive analysis to gain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of existing products in the market, identifying areas for potential improvement. Our goal was to analyze both realtor and apartment platforms to understand what works well and where there are gaps, helping us to refine our own product and ensure it meets user needs more effectively.

Primary Research

Then we plan to conduct separate and independent research with buyers, renters, and agents. We began by interviewing two groups: buyers&renters, and agents. Initially, we were uncertain about the specific direction we wanted to pursue. These interviews provided foundational insights into the unique needs and purposes of each group. This approach enabled us to pinpoint a concept that would effectively address the distinct requirements of our customers.

Based on our previous interviews and research, we understood the entire experience of our customers during a house-hunting visit. Based on their experience with our improvements, we created a user journey map to represent the evolution of the user experience before and after using this product.

Also conducted a product journey map outlines all the touchpoints where customers interact with Zillow, enabling a comprehensive understanding of how they move through different stages from discovery to final use.

Emotional Journey Map

Product Journey Map

Define

What do they really want?

Interview Insights

After conducting interviews, we identified the aspects of the current products that customers find insufficient. Based on their feedback and the interview insights, we summarized a few key characteristics that customers truly need and organized them into tags for a clearer understanding of user requirements.

Sorting our tags

We analyzed our customers' responses to understand their underlying needs and preferences. By translating what they said into what they meant, we identified the key features they wanted in a product.

Customer Says

Ideation

After that, we chose to use both Brainstorming and SCAMPER idea generation methods in order to maximize the number of innovative ideas. The team brainstormed for a time limit of 3 minutes, came up with some pretty crazy impractical ideas, and finally chose from them the solutions that could be implemented at the moment.

Based on our preliminary research, we began brainstorming and voting on final solutions.

Before

After

SCAMPER

After identifying the product features, we proceeded to create the user flow, focusing on four main features. We then began sketching, with each team member responsible for one feature. Together, within a limited timeframe, we collaboratively drew low-fidelity wireframes.

Wireframes

Usability Test

The usability test results clearly demonstrated that users found the virtual staging features intuitive and smooth, aligning well with our expectations. The ease of use and seamless functionality resonated positively with participants, highlighting the success of our design. However, despite this positive feedback, the tests also revealed several areas for potential improvement. Identifying and addressing these opportunities will help us refine the features further and enhance the overall user experience.

Usability Test Notes

What did I learn?

Elevating Design Through Storytelling

I learned to craft compelling narratives that transform complex data into meaningful experiences, making design insights more engaging and impactful. This skill enhances user experiences by fostering deeper connections and aligning teams around a shared vision.

Data Affinitization and Insight Generation

A significant part of the project involved organizing and synthesizing data through a step-by-step process of data affinitization. By grouping and analyzing information systematically, I was able to uncover the most valuable insights, which became the foundation for creating impactful and user-focused solutions.

Deepening Empathy

Developing empathy played a critical role in understanding user needs on a deeper level. This skill ensured that the designs were not only functional but also genuinely addressed user pain points and goals. It reinforced my commitment to creating solutions that are both usable and accessible.

Thanks for being here! See you on another project! :D

Live Project

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