REDoc

Background

We were given the challenge of improving the current state of REDoc, an application for commercial real estate (CRE) professionals in their daily workflows.

Understanding Client Needs

After reviewing our brief, there were many aspects of the project we needed to get clarification on in order to gain a better understanding of our client’s goals and the intended scope. During our first meeting, we found that the top goals of our clients were to:
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We also wanted to gain a better understanding of how our clients would define success for REDoc, and we found that defining success meant:
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We also narrowed down our primary user and buyer:

The Landscape

From our initial meeting with our clients, we learned that there were already various commercial real estate (CRE) digital tools for professionals in the field. We wanted to learn more about what’s out there on the market, and identify REDoc’s opportunity space.

We found that:

The market for CRE digital tools is steadily increasing, and half the market has yet to invest in property management and accounting platforms. We wanted to see what digital products were already on the market, and so we identified 6 direct competitors to do a deeper analysis on.
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We found that there were competitors that covered many aspects of the property management workflow, but what was still lacking for property managers was a centralized place to have all the documents they need and the ability to stay informed about any updates relating to documents.

Now that we had a better idea of the market for REDoc, we wanted to learn more about our users.
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Who did we talk to?

Understanding Our Users

I conducted interviews along with my teammates with commercial real estate professionals who have backgrounds in asset management, property management, portfolio management, and operations (property transitions). We wanted to learn more about their respective ways of working with key stakeholders, and the different technologies/services within their current and past roles in the industry.

Their exposure to the REDoc demo/idea was extremely minimal to non-existent, and so our research questions focused heavily on communication, management, interactions, and frustrations with documents within their workflows.
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We synthesized our data through an affinity diagram:

Insight 1:

There are inconsistent processes at an individual level and at a company-wide level with email management, document management, and CRE application/platform use.
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The inconsistent methods of file storage (often individual, company driven) and use of varied applications (often company, client driven) are due to there being multiple short term solutions in addressing different needs for various involved stakeholders.

Insight 2:

Emails are the file storage, receipt/back-up, & custom process on how users feel secure with their tracked communication. Regardless of all the different software and methods of available communication, emails are the primary form of communication for the users.

However, there were similar needs that surfaced for email use that came up for inconsistent processes at an individual and organizational level:
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Additional workflow implications:

From our insights, we identified two main opportunity areas.

Our 2 Main Opportunity Areas:

Defining Our User

The property manager:
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The Problem

From our research up to this point, we saw the main problem to be:

We developed four main design principles to guide us along the process:

Our Concepts

Our concepts stemmed from the two main areas we identified to explore:

Document Tracking & Integrated Communication

From there, we explored document task flows, possible ways to track document activity, and incorporating communication throughout tasks.
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10 Concepts:

We tested our concepts with four users who all worked in the CRE industry.

What Stood Out

Users want to be more aware of document processes within their workflows.
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They need transparency, visibility, and accessibility to the documents they need.

With these themes identified, we would want to consider, understand and recommend how to expand on a concept/task flows that provide assurance, efficiencies, and foresight for current and future asset managers and property managers. Our users need to work within a consistent and sustainable digital environment that will provide continued balance to the workflow for current and future transitions/transfers that occur for asset & property managers to focus on property issues and create value creation.
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Focusing on 4 Main Concepts:

Document Storage

Templates

Communication of Workflow

Notifications

The Product

We tested the prototype with 5 users in total, all of which were from the commercial real estate industry.


Key Takeaway: users needed to have multiple ways to access, share and upload documents.
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Integrating More Actions

More Ways to Share

The Impact

User

All our users expressed interest in REDoc for improving their current workflows. Many commented that REDoc combines a lot of assets from other software they use, and found value in the “one-stop shop” nature of the product.

Client

Our client expressed positive feedback on what we provided them in our final meeting. To address their additional questions for their next steps moving forward, we provided a document of key recommendations, a site map, and annotated wireframes for them to hand off to other UX /UI designers, developers, and other parties to further work on.

Site Map

Recommendations

Integrate with Outlook (Existing Email/Messenger Systems)

Users wanted to understand if the alerts were customizable and also pre-integrated with their email/outlook, as it may be a quicker way to get to what needs their attention. The recommendation for alerts or notifications would be customization of access (permission control) alerts and integrating with existing messenger systems such as outlook to customize & streamline user’s experience with REDoc.
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Mobile App Roadmap

Related to integrating with existing email/messenger systems, having REDoc readily available on mobile was another takeaway we had from testing - efficiently notifying users of document updates or issues that require their attention.
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Customizing Permission for Third Parties

Users expressed concern in ways to customize how different involved parties experience REDoc, because privacy is a big factor that they want control in. To further streamline and provide more transparency in workflows, customizing access/permission controls for third parties (legal teams, other companies that are buying/selling the user’s building) would be a recommendation so transfer of documents are secure and visible to all parties involved.

Test Calendar View for Notifications/Alerts

Some users were interested in understanding if notifications or alerts would have a calendar view/a way to look ahead on what’s also coming up (i.e. automated notifications related to expiring contracts) so testing a calendar view for notifications would be a future recommendation.