How we redesigned our homebuying experience for COVID-19
An interview with the Buyer Experience design team about the challenges and opportunities created by the pandemic
At Opendoor, the design team plays a valuable and strategic role in creating the products consumers across America use to buy and sell homes. Along with our partners on product management, engineering, and operations, we are redesigning the home buying and selling experience, and with that always comes unique and interesting challenges.
Recently, when COVID-19 made its impact known, our team was presented with a new set of challenges — and opportunities — to make big, bold changes to the way people buy homes.
I sat down with our Buyer Experience design team to discuss how they updated Opendoor’s product to make home buying possible during coronavirus. The team includes:
- Evie Alexander, Senior Design Manager
- Eli Showalter, Product Designer
- Daniel Lee, Product Designer
- Katherine Chen, Senior UX Researcher
- Joshua Carpentier, Senior UX Writer
How did Opendoor’s home buying product work before COVID-19?
Evie: At a high-level, buyers could browse, tour, and buy homes with the Opendoor product. The app contains a feed of all the homes for sale in their area. Before, when customers found a home they loved, they were able to either schedule a private tour of that home or, if Opendoor owned the house, they simply showed up and “self-toured” by unlocking the front door with their app.
If the person decided to purchase the home, they simply tapped a button to start the offer process. We connected them with an expert to answer any questions, talk about pricing, and walk through all steps. It’s easy, seamless, and fully-digital.
Daniel: People loved the ease of touring homes with our product. We provided a hassle-free experience, didn’t pressure people to buy, and gave guidance for next steps. We were seeing record tour levels each week.
But once COVID-19 hit, our touring process needed to change. We updated the way the product worked in each market, based on the shelter-in-place regulations rolling out, the safety of our customers and teammates, and the concerns we were hearing from customers.
What were the problems the team needed to solve to make Opendoor safer during the pandemic?
Katherine: In April, we took the time to listen to our customers. We conducted a study and learned that many people had completely paused their home search due to health concerns as well as uncertainty in their own finances and the economy.
Eli: But we also realized that even in this time of uncertainty, consumers who were really serious about buying their next home still wanted to figure out how to make it happen.
Katherine: And Opendoor already appealed to people as a safer way to buy. Our self-tour feature, which provides customers with the ability to tour vacant, Opendoor-owned homes, stood out as inherently safer than touring owner-occupied homes or touring homes with an agent.
So we decided to build more features that would provide customers with a safer home buying process.
What were some of the updates you made?
Evie: First, we focused on contactless touring. We started capturing 360° content of every Opendoor-owned home. This makes it easy to do a virtual walkthrough at any time, from anywhere, through our app. We also productized video tours, where an agent from Opendoor visits a home on the buyer’s behalf and does a video walkthrough over FaceTime or a similar service.
We shifted to self-tour scheduling in order to make the process safer and ensure there was only one prospective buyer in the home at a time. We created a feature allowing buyers to sign up for time slots and gave visitors push notifications when their time was up so they could safely vacate the home before the next visitor arrives.
Eli: We also found ways to better connect buyers with experts from our customer experience team. We added features into the flow that allowed people to call our support team, who helps them figure out ways to tour homes and navigate all the different shelter-in-place regulations. This gave customers a more personal experience to better guide them through all the uncertainty.
We were already working on a new chat feature that we initially thought would only be valuable for really serious buyers far along in the process. However, with COVID-19, we saw people start to ask a lot of general questions at all points of the customer journey. As a result, we opened up the feature to everyone who downloaded the app, to make it easier for everyone to connect with our experts on staff.
Evie: There were also many “softer” updates focused on helping buyers feel comfortable and confident that Opendoor provided a safer experience. Our UX writer, Josh Carpentier, spearheaded this work, ensuring it was consistent and resonated with buyers. We looked at the messaging throughout the entire funnel and updated the content. We reiterated that our experience was contactless, there would not be anybody else in the home, and we were cleaning homes on a regular basis. This work was more about peace of mind than functional changes, but was equally important. It involved heavy design work and collaboration across the team.
Josh: And that entire funnel is more than people probably realize. It wasn’t solely creating a few new screens or updating words on existing screens in the app. But it was hitting every possible place a customer would see or engage with messaging — this includes our website, emails, text messages, notifications, physical signage in the homes, and more. Our goal was to make sure everything was clear, concise, and consistent for the consumer — and, since this was an ever-changing situation, we needed to be flexible and figure out things in the moment.
This effort required a lot of collaboration across all the functions within our design organization and with other teams outside design. How did everyone work together to create the new experience?
Daniel: One great example is how we collaborated with our Customer Experience team. They forwarded crucial feedback from our customers and our research team gathered insights. Both of these components helped us understand how our buyers were thinking about their home buying journey during COVID-19. All this gave us not only guidance on what to do, but also the confidence in the adjustments we made in our product during these uncertain times.
Evie: I joined the company after quarantine had already begun, and I was amazed at how seamlessly collaboration was happening across teams. There were no dividing lines and everyone was moving in perfect sequence. Every designer working on the product was looking across the whole end-to-end experience, which I think is something that often you don’t get with subteam orgs.
Research played a huge role in really helping bring our users’ concerns to life in a very tangible way. Katherine did a great job of talking with buyers on a regular basis — testing prototypes, doing remote interviews, and getting reactions to some of our modified touring ideas. All to better understand how people are feeling, which is such a delicate thing during this time.
Josh: A big benefit we have is that we work at a company that clearly sees the value of research and design. Even if certain teams haven’t had a chance to work together on things, they’re happy to partner with everyone who wants to help because we all genuinely care about our customers’ experience.
Katherine: One other thing to add here is our close collaboration with the Operations team. We had to work so closely with them to update messaging for each different market since each city had various regulations around what real estate activities were and weren’t allowed.
We also had to collaborate with Ops to figure out what that new in-home touring was like. They had to update the process for cleaning and other maintenance work to keep both customers and our employees safe, so, in turn, needed to update the customer experience. We worked with support teams on Ops to update their scripts to include safety messaging, explaining why things were different and how we were keeping people safe.
What was the process you followed? How did shelter-in-place affect the way you all worked?
Katherine: Luckily, the research team was already pretty well equipped. We conduct a good amount of remote work since we’re in 21 markets across the U.S., and those housing markets each have different dynamics.We leveraged our existing user base and also used online survey tools to get a pulse on the general sentiment of changing consumer behaviors. As a result, we were able to learn a lot about how people were feeling about home buying, and it wasn’t too different from how we normally conduct research.
Eli: Honestly, for me, it’s taken a while to get used to remote collaboration. In the office, it was so easy to spin over to talk to your engineer or PM. It took me a little time to adjust to always calling Daniel and saying, “Hey, I’m thinking about this thing. Can we just chat through it,” or calling the PM for an ad hoc video chat whenever I need to work through something.
Evie also implemented a couple more official times for our team to work together, which was helpful. Some meetings are structured like a crit, and some are more of a jam session where whoever has projects they need to talk through can show up and get feedback. It’s time for us to see each other and work together online. Getting used to that new workflow and being okay with doing those things ad hoc has supported the transition.
Evie: Our team also leaned into all of the amazing features that Figma offers for collaboration. From being able to watch a teammate’s screen by clicking on their thumbnail to leaving comments directly on the design file, it’s been a huge game changer for us. To be honest, I don’t think we could have done it with any other design software.
Daniel: One big component of our culture is an “ambitiously chill” vibe we all share. While we are a team that’s super capable of adjusting and working quickly, we also all enjoy working with each other. Initially, it was tough to adjust to remote work as the new norm, but our workplace manager has been active about keeping us all engaged via team games or different activities. It helps us by providing a space to take a break and to have some fun during these crazy times. It reminds me how lucky I am to be working with this group.
Josh: Because I work in a different location than the rest of the team, it wasn’t too different for me. I’ve used some of my time to help others learn how to work remotely. Things like consistent structure to your day, taking breaks, etc. And to Evie’s point, having the right tools definitely makes it easier — not just iterating on visuals and content with our own team, but giving teams outside of design the ability to collaborate with us all in the same place.
That’s great. So how is the product doing now? How’s everything performing now that we’ve launched all these new features?
Katherine: After launching the new experience, we saw a rapid increase in touring right in the first week. And when we followed up with those people, we heard so much excitement. Customers had feedback such as, “Oh, we were waiting for tours to come back on again because we feel safe.” and “This is our preferred way to shop for homes.” Our visits per home have now returned to where they were pre-COVID-19.
I think this is because we provide people with more resources to view a home, beyond photos. With a live video tour, home shoppers can get a sense of layout, the condition of the home, what rooms are on different floors, and the surrounding neighborhood. We are ushering into a new age where home buyers feel more comfortable using digital tools to make the kinds of decisions they before would only make after seeing a home in person.
Evie: Even once we go back to a more “normal” reality, many of these behaviors are going to stick around. There’s always going to be people who will benefit from this new remote process. Features like the 360° touring give people a sense of whether or not it’s worth going to visit the home and help people waste less time driving to showings and open houses. It’s a much better product flow and something that even after COVID-19, we’ll continue to develop.
Katherine: Providing these new ways of virtual touring also gives people more flexibility and access, especially for older people with mobility challenges, people with accessibility issues, or people with scheduling constraints due to work and or childcare. So regardless of COVID-19 we’re widening access to home buying to people who have constraints in their daily lives.
Any learnings or advice for other design teams who are undertaking similar efforts, whether it’s redesigning a product experience to work during the pandemic or figuring out how to work together as a distributed team?
Evie: I’d recommend asking yourself and your team, “how can we build something that isn’t only focused on today’s problems, but will stand the longevity of time?” Think about how the world will change and look different a year or two years from now. Build for that world. Don’t only react to the things happening at this current moment.
Eli: And don’t assume that other teams have a full view into how everything should connect. When there are so many changes to make, all at the same time, that work can start to happen without a clear, shared vision for how it all fits together. The design team needs to help map everything out and create that vision.
Josh: If you’re newer to a company, or even if you’ve been there a while but haven’t done this yet, go on a meet and greet roadshow. Get to know people across teams and departments — even ones you think you might not work with. Understand what they do, and educate them how you can help them. There’s probably more crossover than you realize. Make sure your team has the best tools in place to help get the job done. And above all else, talk to each other — hop on a quick call to get feedback on something, share an idea, or chat about nothing. Staying connected is important, both for the work and your sanity.
