Redesigning MagicBricks Interface | UX case study

Published in

UX Diaries

7 min readSep 6, 2020

I am Dhrumilkumar Patel student of visual communication design studying at UID Gandhinagar, and the project was in collaboration with Jainesh Jain. We have done a complete research and analysis of UI/UX for Magicbricks website.

As per our assignment we were asked to do a detailed research and analysis of a particular brand/website/app and find out the most minute details problems in the UX and to also find a proper solution for it.

In this project we have done an in depth research on the UX of a full website and also found some solutions which can help the user of Magicbricks to surf the website seamlessly and without much eye movement. We tried to add some features such as verified agents and rent for bachelors, which were not there in the existing website.

We would like you to have a look on our project and would like to hear some reviews from you.

About MagicBricks

Magicbricks provides a platform for property buyers and sellers to locate properties of interest and source information on the real estate space in a clear and transparent process. Agents are also stakeholders of this website, they make deals easily for buyers and sellers through the website.

Vision :

Drive strategic innovation to generate new service ideas. Continuously improve existing services and features to drive higher conversion or engagement. Internalize and deeply understand Magicbricks’s mission and strategies, as well as the mission and objectives of Magicbricks.

Mission :

To provide best services as per customer requirement.
To bring new services to do better in the market of real estate portals.
To provide High quality and 24/7 customer services.
To add more Certified agents and sellers.
To provide real estate services all over India.
To bring new services based on customer feedback and reviews.
To continue to reduce frauds and make sure all properties are certified.

Understanding of the Stakeholders

Stakeholders are the part of the brand and without stakeholders any brand can’t survive in the market.

Magicbricks (Owner) : Verifying agents, sellers and their properties and give them a virtual space for listing properties.
Sellers : Post property advertisement for sell and rent.
Buyers : Buying property through agents and website.
Agents : Guide to buy or sale right types of property.
Tenants/Students/Bachelors : Rent a house.
Builders : Listing their new projects.

Analyzing the needs of the brand vs the customers

Brand :

It advertises only the top properties in the location provided.
It pushes the sellers to buy their premium memberships so as to advertise their product/property at a greater extent.
Trust from customers
Good revenue
Be well known brand in the market

Customers :

Looking for an affordable property
Looking for a trusted and reliable agent/property
Value for money
Minimum efforts to buy/rent
Get good features in less amount

Experience the existing interface

While using the website for the very first time we see a lot of things happening on the home page.
We see only the top property on the landing page which is usually priced at a high amount.
While the maximum users of Magicbricks are middle class and higher middle class they should have advertised the property for high class people
Also if we look at cheaper property for rent , we don’t get proper info/pictures of the property.
If we surf the site from a seller’s point of view then they continuously ask us to take the memberships for advertising more.
Website is mainly focused on Bangalore based property by geographical location. It shows and suggests more about property that are located in Bangalore.
Website is not showing property by customer location.

Competitor Analysis

Many other real estate portals exist in India, So here we compared Magicbricks with other competitor companies.

Competitor companies

99acres.com
Makaan.com
Housing.com
Sulekha.com
Indiaproperty.com

Comparison of Property Listing Packages & Revenue with Competitors

99Acres is one of the popular names in the industry and is included in one of the premium and most preferred real estate web portals of India making it Magicbricks’ main competitor. They both give free property listings for sale, buy and rent
99acres helps the user while filling the form by asking them to call. So, the user experience of 99acres is more impressive than Magicbricks. Magicbricks should have this type of feature in their user experience.

Customer Analysis

Different customer clusters

Age group : 18 years up
Gender : Man/Female/Others
Middle class to high class people from all over India
Property sellers and buyers
Property agents
Builders

S.W.O.T. Analysis

Strength :

Well known premium property listing real estate brand
Wide range of premium listing packages
Advantages of ready-to-move-in homes
3rd highest revenue among real estate portals around the world
Customized solutions as per our requirements

Weakness :

No verification system for agents
Not enough photos of property
Not enough features in silver package (₹5277)
Not giving verify badge in silver package (₹5277)
Expensive membership plans than others

Opportunities :

Add a feature or service of verification system for agents and property.
Good response/review after buying the package
Add more location/cities for property listing
Add property exchange program
Add the feature of auto detect location when anybody opens the website.

Threats :

Fake agents
Fake location update by agent
99acres & Housing
Any other real estate portals

Problem Analysis in current website

Sometimes there are not enough photos of homes or flats to get clarity about the space.
False information about the property the user is looking for.
Once logged in, users receive n numbers of calls from the agents. While the user is not even confirmed about the particular property.
Forced to take premium membership
Fake agents (Very rarely)
False location update by agents
Gold package for advertisement
Only one service included in silver package
No responses after buying the packages

Proposed changes in website

The website should use the customer’s location by default.
Add agent verification system to reduce fraud
Make a guidelines for sell and rent
Post your property should be appear in the column of sell.
Minimum 3 photos of exterior and minimum 3 photos of interior for listing property for sell or rent
Improve property verification
Add background image instead of solid color after header
Don’t force the user to create a membership
There is too much content in Header, it should be more categorized and sorted.
Bring the Magicbricks facility in most cities in India.
Customers feedback should be place in every builders project.
Add agent column in header
Add profile icon instead of text (Sign In/My Activity)
Add button for search by property id instead of text
Ask for Re-Enter password in sign up page to avoid mistakes

Follow the proper grid system across website.

Information Hierarchy

We created general and category wise information hierarchy for the Magicbricks website users.

Navigation Flow

We created a uninterpreted and user friendly navigation flow for the Magicbricks website. It allow user navigate one screen to another screen of the website.

Style Guide

We have added hover, it’s not there on the website. A hover effect can give them a clear signal to see what’s clickable. When users move their cursor over a link, they’ll notice a change in color or shape that tells them to click. This prevents them from missing links.

Wireframes

While looking at the website for the very 1st time we noticed that a proper grid was not used for placing the images and information and was also loaded with a lot of information on a single page and with some Ad. on the right side which while looking at was not very good. So we decided to redesign the website’s wireframes to make more comfortable to user to surf the site. We have used a proper grid and tried to focus only the main and important information which the user looks for and also visually appealing.

Prototypes

We created a prototype to evaluate a new design to enhance precision by and users.

Desktop & Mobile Version

Conclusion

This was a great project to work on. We learnt a lot since it was my first UX research project alongside my partner Jainesh, a big thanks to him for his support.