Case study: Closing Dashboard
I sat down with Allen Jordan, Senior Product Designer on my team, to talk about redesigning Opendoor’s Closing Dashboard.
What was the problem you were solving?
At Opendoor, we’re creating a radically new and simple way to buy and sell your home. One of the ways we do that is by providing each customer an online dashboard to digitally track their selling process, which they don’t get when selling traditionally with an agent. We call this dashboard the Closing Dashboard.
After the seller decides to accept Opendoor’s offer on their home, they begin the closing process, which historically has been a complex process. Traditionally, customers have a long list of tasks, including setting up an inspection, performing repairs, coordinating title and escrow… the list goes on.
For customers who use Opendoor, we wanted to make the closing process frictionless so they feel in control every step of the way.
Why was solving this problem important?
We first built a closing dashboard for our customers 4 years ago. Early versions of the Closing Dashboard were based on capacity and need, functioning primarily as a supplementary tool for a CX(Customer Success) team member to walk a customer through each step of the closing process.
As we grew, so did our vision for the product. The idea to make the Closing Dashboard more self service would allow us to scale and grow our capabilities faster for our customers. Last year we launched 10 new cities, and it was imperative that we streamline the closing process with product.
What was your design process?
Research
I started out diving into existing research and looking at inspiration. Companies like Shift, Wealthfront, Better Mortgage were all similar in that they guide customers through complex transactions.
Explore
I then organized a series of workshops and brainstorms to cast a wide net to collect ideas. Those ideas became early wireframes and prototypes we used to test and get signal on ideas. One idea that everyone quickly aligned on was the idea of a summary page with a “pizza tracker” — one place for you to always see the status of your sale. This idea actually came from our operators, who had been advocating for a summary page and saw that opportunity for a while.
Refine
As I was refining my designs, I partnered closely with research to do iterative usability testing with high fidelity prototypes. My PM also invited our operations partners to weekly design reviews, where they would give feedback on wording and flows. They were able to give us real time insight into what customers were thinking and feeling, because they talk to customers every day.
Build
During the build phase, I worked closely with my engineers to QA the final product. We even made time to add some delight into the MVP — transition animations, loaders and fun illustrations.
What were your biggest learnings?
Sometimes the solution is obvious — don’t discredit the things that are simple and straightforward like a pizza tracker because its not a “new” thing. Don’t try to over innovate sometimes. The hard part in creating a useful product is not always the ingenuity of the idea, but how well you solve the problem for customers and how you execute it.
Special thanks to Allen Jordan for his work on this project, and the stellar PM, Eng team, and operations teams who brought it through the finish line.
If these challenges sound interesting to you, please check out our jobs page. Opendoor is reinventing the experience of buying and selling homes, and we are hiring designers, researchers, and writers.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at annie [at] opendoor [dot] com.
