Zoopla App Redesign
The App Team
- Product Owner
- Tech Lead
- UX Designer
- UI Designer
- Content Designer (me)
Zoopla is a leading UK online property portal, providing comprehensive tools and information for homebuyers, sellers, renters, and landlords.
In 2019 the Zoopla app was due to be moved to a new framework. The company wanted to use this opportunity to review the app’s purpose and design as part of its wider product ecosystem.
At the same time, Zoopla was acquired by US private-equity group Silver Lake, so was undergoing a wider brand review.
The Challenge
Increase the number of leads being sent to estate agents and letting agents via the Zoopla mobile app and improve the overall user experience.
Known issues:
- Mostly just duplicating website content and KPIs
- Unique purpose or value not defined
- Target audience not defined
- Limited user insights or metrics available
- Move already planned to React Native framework
Approach
1. Define the app strategy: the unique value it offers, or could offer, to consumers (the public), customers (estate agents and letting agents) and the business
2. Explore and develop the brand tone, voice and style
3. Design, build, test and iterate based on the above
4. Create the App Store content and other collateral
Ben joined Zoopla as the first content designer in the business. Meaning he had to quickly balance the massive role of content design evangelist and content designer for the multiple product streams he was embedded in.
We worked together in the Zoopla app team, where he quickly became indispensable and helped shape the future of the product.
As a true team-player, Ben initiated conversations between the product team and key stakeholders across various departments, opening up desperately needed lines of communication.
He goes above and beyond to understand the challenges of the team he is embedded in and the requirements of the wider business.
Personally, I went from not knowing what content design was, to be a number one fan—all because of Ben’s hard work. I was lucky to have worked with him.
Discovery
From our data analysis, user research and subject matter expert (SME) interviews across the business, we quickly realised our two biggest user types, buyers and renters, expected quite different things from the app.
Buyers wanted a place to browse, self-educate and be entertained, often for several months, before deciding to take action. Renters, on the other hand, wanted to be able to thoroughly scour the market, get the most accurate and up-to-date information, access it easily on the move and take the relevant action quickly.
Both user types represented value to the business, via the leads they send to estate agents and lettings agents through Zoopla. At such an early stage, it would have been reckless to prioritise one user group at the expense of the other.
We pointed at a lot of post-it notes
Outputs
The App’s Purpose
With the above in mind, we worked as a team to define a unique ‘belief’, ‘vision’ and ‘mission’ document for the Zoopla app, to give us clarity in our purpose and guide any strategic or design decisions we would make.
The UI designers used this to inspire a new suite of illustrations (example below).
An extract from the app purpose document
An illustration for the App Store ‘App of the Day’ inspired by the app strategy
Brand Voice and Tone
Through further workshops, we developed a framework for a brand personality, including personality archetypes and defining character traits.
From this we built content pillars, objectives for the various parts of the app, and some working experience principles.
Once agreed by the team and key stakeholders, we could start applying it to all parts of the app, from the error messaging to the marketing material.
A bit of wall from the app tone and voice workshop
Some areas of the app where we began to experiment with voice and tone.
Information Architecture (IA)
We redesigned the IA to remove some underused legacy features and reprioritise others. We got rid of the complicated ‘hamburger’ menu and organised the content around five permanently-visible tabs: Home, Properties, Search, House prices and Settings.
The ‘Home’ tab will give users a snapshot of their activity and offer personalised recommendations and advice – more useful for those wanting to window-shop, be inspired and self-educate in their own good time. The ‘Properties’ and ‘Search’ tabs give more active users a dedicated space to organise their search, shortlist properties, track their activity, dig into the details and take action quickly.
The old app’s ‘hamburger’ menu
The new app’s five-tab navigation
App Design
‘Home’ content changes based on the user’s browsing behaviour.
Empty states are used to engage and drive action.
Sections have been reorganised for easier navigation.
Photos given maximum space on property pages.
App Store Collateral
Short and Long-term Thinking
For the launch of the new app we could only reorganise or remove features. We didn’t have time to create entirely new ones. However, we had some wild and exciting ideas for the near future that could only be implemented thanks to the new IA.
With more robust analytics now in place, the team can also measure and interpret user behaviours more reliably and make design decisions much more quickly.
Outcomes
The app launched to 100% of iOS users on 25th June 2019.
Key metrics:
- Additional 500,000 leads to agents each year
- Increased iOS lead conversion by 36%
- Increased Android lead conversion by 40%
- Increased signed-in users by 23%
- Increased Play Store rating from 3.25 to 4.77