Case Study: Scout Field Tool
I sat down with Tom Yang, Product Designer, to talk about Scout, Opendoor’s new app for field operators.
What was the problem you were solving?
At Opendoor, we strive to make buying and selling homes simple and reliable for all. To make sure customers get a great price for their home, and to help us manage it, we:
- Inspect the house to get its fair market value
- Estimate and oversee needed repairs
- Setup home security systems
To meet these goals, we had 3 distinct roles using 3 different tools.
However, this paradigm of having different roles, tools, and ecosystems to facilitate a single home transaction proved inefficient as we grew in size. In 2019, we decided to consolidate these multiple roles into 1 role, and empower every field operator with the ownership of a home from top to bottom.
To enable this more streamlined operating model, we needed to rethink the existing apps and workflows, as well as the underlying business processes.
What was your design process?
Understand
The best way to learn the process is to experience it first-hand. So we shadowed field operators in different markets, used the same tools they use, and even got our hands dirty with repairs. This experience helped us to understand market nuances and further exposed to us the inconsistency and redundancy in our workflows.
We also conducted interviews to uncover process and tooling issues, and dig into historical data to discover hidden patterns.
Define
After understanding the process and user pain points, we were able to identify a list of unfulfilled user needs and process loopholes. We then got alignment with Product, Engineering, and Operations on areas to focus that would bring out the most business, user, and tech values.
Explore
As we brainstormed and explored different options to streamline the experience, we saw a repeating pattern across the existing roles and their corresponding workflows:
- Identify issues with the home
- Plan the work to be done
- Manage the execution of the work
- Verify the work is complete and correct
With this understanding of a universal framework that could be applied in any situation, we were able to explore the design of an app that would flex to all home visit situations. And at the same time, provide consistent UI cues for field operators to understand what needed to be done and how to do it for each individual home.
Prototype, Test, Refine
We wanted to figure out how to structure the data while providing a friction-free experience. So we involved our field operators early in the design phase and did usability tests with them as we iterated towards the final product.
Discovering new opportunities
Working closely with our users helped us come up with new product opportunities. And it inspired us to push for using smart logic to automate repetitive tasks.
What was your biggest learning from this project?
The user experience doesn’t stop at the app. It involves how users interact with the physical world, how handoffs happen across multiple roles, and how data flows throughout the ecosystem. To take all these into consideration significantly expanded the scope of my work. Still, it’s ultimately what made this project unique and exciting.
