Skills
Design Leadership
Project Management
User Research
Team
Sole Product Designer / Project Lead (Me)
Dev Team
Sales Team (Account Managers)
Marketing Team
Duration
2 weeks (1st Launch)
3 weeks (2nd Launch)
Tool
Figma
Asana
Overview
FastExpert is an agent search and referral platform. As the sole Product Designer / Project Lead, I designed Zillow Sync feature to help agents easily import their transactions and listings without needing to manually upload them one by one. This new feature successfully expanded the database by 125%.
Role
I spearheaded the entire project from start to finish, owning both design and project management. I defined milestones, set deadlines, and ensured timely delivery while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to align design with time and development constraints.
Results
Expanded the transaction database
(2020-2023 vs. 2024 1 month)
Decreased the # of support tickets
(weekly)
PROBLEM
Almost every real estate agent (our main user) has Zillow accounts with hundreds of transactions and listings. However, there was no way for them to import these into their FastExpert profile, leading to many complaints. While we already had a Zillow import functionality, it was only available in our internal dashboard, which was managed by Account Managers.
Tedious manual uploads 🫠
(Upload transaction popup)
Only Account Managers could initiate the import 😩
(Internal admin dashboard)
Inefficient process 😞
Account Managers receive support tickets -> They manually initiate the import -> User cannot track the progress -> Another ticket -> Repeat… 🔁
⇒ Both users and Account Managers complained!
GOALS
We were on a tight timeline — at the end of every year, we send out awards to real estate agents based on their sales (transactions) history. Even if agents had made numerous sales, they couldn’t receive the awards without uploading their transactions. And it was already early/mid-December when I started this project! After discussing with the CEO and other teams, we set both short-term and long-term goals:
Immediate, short-term goal ⚡
Make sure our users use the feature as much as possible so they can receive their awards for the transactions they uploaded.
Ultimate, final, long-term goal 🎯
Expand our transactions and listings databases to draw more clients, as they were not expanding even when our signup rates were getting higher.
Anticipated results 💭
Zillow Sync feature ->
Users: Happy with easy uploads & awards! 😊
FastExpert (Us): Happy with less tickets, expanded databases & new clients! 😊
USERS & CONSTRAINTS
As the sole Product Designer for this project, I learned more about our user base by analyzing the company’s previous user research. I kept these insights in mind throughout the design process while also adhering to our time constraints.
Our users (real estate agents) 🏠
Primarily middle-aged professionals & seniors
Don't like BIG changes
Prefer easy-to-understand designs
Time & Dev constraints ⏰
2 weeks
Short on time -> Could not make BIG changes
Should be easily & quickly implementable by the devs
[Goals 🎯] Therefore, I should… 🤔
Create accessible designs & clear and straightforward flows. Focus on the functionality (vs. fancy UI). Quick changes.
Aim for: SMALL change -> BIG impact
DESIGN
Research & Ideation stage (messy!) 🔎
High-fidelity designs (after countless meetings!) 🎨
Email designs — Feature promotion & Import completion notification (collaborated with the Marketing team!) ✉️
TEST & ITERATE
Due to time constraints, I tested the prototypes internally with the Sales team (Account Managers), who interacted with our users the most. I also met frequently with the Dev team to ensure my designs could be quickly implemented.
(Dev constraint) Transaction preview
Showing up to 10 (+ tooltip) instead of showing EVERY transaction.
Autosync feature
I suggested for better user experience—confirmed by the dev team.
Review import & sync
The Sales team suggested based on user behavior.
LAUNCH 1
I QA-tested on the dev server and then launched the feature. Right after the launch, we received many support tickets, mostly related to technical issues and confusion about the feature. I closely worked with Account Managers and the Dev team to resolve user issues.
⭐ [POINT] Simple & quick, but effective changes!
Initial result was good… But we wanted more.
The awards were sent out, and feature usage statistics were strong. However, I wanted to encourage users to expand the database further. The initial launch focused mainly on transactions (due to the awards), but this time I wanted to also prioritize listings and reviews.
USER RESEARCH & ITERATE -> LAUNCH 2
I first analyzed the stats report to see how many users had linked their Zillow profiles, so I could send reminder emails to those who hadn’t. I also interviewed a few users before iterating on my design, as I had more time for user research this round.
Interview insights - Feedback from users 💬
(Before) Users had to visit three different pages (transaction, listing, review) 👎 -> (After) 'One-stop shop' ✅
Reminder email 🔔
🎨 Simple design: Traditionally, A/B test results showed that 'fancy' emails (with graphics and long scrolls) didn’t perform well.
📊 Tracked: Whether users who hadn’t synced yet added their Zillow profile links.
📈 Tracked: Further increases in transaction, listing, and review sync numbers.
[Bonus! 🚀] New look for the Listings page (UI Design)
This was a separate project I worked on (due to user complaints) right before the launch 2 -> Later became linked to this Zillow Sync feature!
FINAL DESIGNS & RESULTS
Transaction import & sync
'One-stop shop'
FastExpert (Us)
Saved time & resources + Expanded databases!
Users
Easy upload & Awards!
Expanded the transaction database
(2020-2023 vs. 2024 1 month)
Decreased the # of support tickets
(weekly)
REFLECTION
Takeaway 1
Balancing [business goals + time & dev constraints] vs. [user research and designs] is important.
Takeaway 2
Understanding the target user base is important to build successful designs.
Takeaway 3
Wearing multiple hats is challenging, but rewarding!
If I had more time…
Since this project was focused on supporting existing user base -> I would like to expand this feature for new users (signups) as well!
