Match — a product within a product
If you have been bearing with us Brixel folks along this past year, you already know Brixel and what we’re up to. In case you’ve been absent, we focus on developing a disruptive approach to empower people trading Real Estate globally. Take a look here if you got curious and haven’t done so yet.
Building a product within a product
Brixel is in itself an extensive product and since the beginning we have been focusing on providing people with its core features: Page and the Editor, but there is much more to this platform, that we have been so committed to.
In 2015 Match already had a vision of what it was supposed to become. It started as a key feature of the product that would allow users to browse for specific properties, that would lead to — as the name so directly emphasises — the match for the perfect property people would be looking for.
We wanted it to be more than just the common filter, although by reading this is what you would be thinking, and to do so we passed through several brainstorming sessions to understand the best approach to take.
From a search-by-mood, to a card-like layout (following Brixel’s first design approach), passing through a selection of properties by main cities, visual information display has always been our foremost concern for Match, side-by-side with emotional triggers related to either buying or selling a house. There would be a lot to say about this buying/selling dichotomy along Brixel, but to keep it short for now, let’s say we struggled into balancing and binding both in the same product.
Building along our vision
Match was always our little outlier, the idea kept on the backdoor for when the time was right or to be used as a breath of fresh air during our spare time as a team. Finally, it got featured in two of our work weeks in Portugal, where it was more concisely approached on one of our early stage concept vs. concept challenge, which helps us building a common ground with inputs from everyone on the team.
There were three things this conceptualisation made clear to where the whole team standed: (1) people (i.e., users) should be able to locate and identify properties on a map (the search itself); (2) there should be a clear way for people to engage with Match for trading their property — our selling/buying dilemma; (3) provide data in a way it could help people decide on the property’s market value as well as being an indicator of trading flows within Brixel. And actually, a fourth thing worth mentioning, we wanted it to be closer to people.
Match 2017: an iteration game
During 2017, Match was one of our main focus, as an integrant part of the product and after building the first interactive prototype, we tested it to understand what to improve and from where to iterate. There is a noticeable jump in approach from prototype #1, locked in concept, to today’s solution aiming at delivering a more targeted response to prime needs. Moreover, here we start showing off our market data, to make it even more powerful for people to actually understand house price balance in the market.
Talking about data, it became ever more important for shaping the vision for Match. The property in itself becomes the entry point for understanding price balances and to provide a specific and straightforward overview on its strengths and weaknesses. This was our approach to provide more information about the property when selecting a house on the map, which was something people felt was missing. We came up with a radar chart to give user a quick overview.
Mobile interaction
After solving some navigation issues and allowing the page to feel more as a whole it finally started to look more like what we are about to premiere. One other inevitable hotspot for us to make flawless was mobile interaction, which can be trickier specially considering the amount of overlays we have floating on Match, and the need to preserve both filters and readability on screen, i.e., the map.
Ready to launch
With this all said, we tried to focus on improving this experience while empowering people’s use of data to magnify their home buying experience, one that people will likely spend some time on, deciding on the best viable option. For sellers, market data functions as a barometer and an overview of how their property will fit within the whole panorama. With this kind of information we bring both buyer and seller closer to the whole market.
This has been a bit of an overview at all the iterative process behind Match and how it came to what it is today. Now it is ready to launch at https://match.brixel.io/ and you can have fun interacting with it and finding out how market data can empower your home buying experience. We also love feedback so feel free to reach out and drop us a line.
Thank you for reading. Visit Match here https://match.brixel.io/
