Hypox
Real estate platform
2023
A real estate service operating in the Czech and Slovak markets, providing a comprehensive range of data-driven functionalities for sellers, buyers, and real estate investors. Hypox's goal is to reduce costs for market participants and enhance industry transparency.
The client is a group of real estate industry experts who decided to launch a new platform that will unite all the market players and bring transparency to the field.
The challenge here was to launch on time, as the client had commitments to investors. And, of course, it wasn't just about launching but also demonstrating good performance.
Additionally, the massive amount of data from the client's background needed to be easily converted for non-experts.
My role was to deliver user-centric designs to contribute to effective initial traction and make the product attractive for the investment round.
I started with conducting 12 interviews with our potential and future users, including people who recently bought or sold properties, those who used financial tools like mortgages, real estate managers, and investors.
From these interviews, the Product Owner (PO) and I identified the specific problems and needs of these groups.
Also, I studied 7 competitors in both local and foreign markets to extract best practices that could be reused in Hypox.
The information and insights that we got helped us validate client hypotheses and polish the details for each one.
Next, I defined user flows and aligned them with business processes.
Each user story was complemented with schemes that helped us meet users' needs and ensure a shared understanding among team members.
Along with the research activities, I created prototypes for the high-priority features and tested them with future customers and team members.
For the UI part, I collaborated with my teammate Rodrigo A., who handled the visual aspect based on the wireframes I provided. I assisted him, reviewed the results, and provided mentorship and support. Together, feature by feature, we created visuals for all platform functionalities. Below are a few of the most important features.
To obtain the current market price of apartments that users are interested in buying or selling, they can simply select the property location on a map or type its address. The system then requests some basic information, and using this along with transaction history, it generates a detailed report on the current price and how it has changed over the selected period of time.
This feature served as an effective tool for attracting new customers through search engine queries such as 'how to get apartment market price'.
Users can buy or sell properties on Hypox. They can filter properties based on their preferences and view available offers either on a map or in a list format.
Each user is free to list their property on the market. Given the large amount of information required, we developed a step-by-step form that prevents cognitive overload and allows users to save a draft of their property page for later.
The design is fully optimized for mobile devices. All features work seamlessly across platforms, providing a smooth experience for users on any device.
UI kit. All the design elements and components were collected and, following best industry standards, implemented into a UI kit, which was appreciated by the developers since it sped up the implementation process and maintenance of the UI.
By launching features one by one, we went through feedback loop iterations, improving existing components with each update.
For example, the evolution of the mortgage calculator form.
In the beginning, the process was clumsy, and the results we delivered did not meet the high-quality bar we had set.
After going through several iterations and learning from our mistakes, we adjusted our approach.
What if we implement a design checklist, where we define the items that must be included and actions to be completed before designs go into development?
For example, during the turmoil of the first iterations, not all components were linked to the UI kit. I fixed this, and that simple activity proved to be highly beneficial.
The project was finished on time, allowing the client to secure funding conditions. As an extra achievement, Hypox was featured by Forbes.
