SalesPacker

SalesPacker is a mess-free platform for property managers helping them to dramatically cut down on time spent on the most time-consuming aspects of property management.

My role
  • User research
  • Competitor research
  • User interviews
  • SME interviews
  • User flow diagrams
  • Wireframing
  • Prototyping
  • Brand identity
Platform(s)
  • Desktop
Location
  • Yerevan, Armenia
Year
  • 2022-2023

1. Discover

Property management is among the most time-consuming operations. Studies across the US and Europe have shown that a landlord or property manager spends more than two weeks of time per year for handling property management-related procedures. Piled up by the amount of time required to take care of the printed non-digital forms like lease contracts those activities amount to a considerable number of hours spent just on property management alone.

Our task was to create a mess-free platform for them to be able to dramatically cut down on time spent on the most time-consuming aspects of property management.

Partnering with real subject matter experts and people actually experiencing the above-mentioned difficulties we have come up with a solution robust enough to deliver value for all of them.

The timeline of work

Interviews with SMEs and users provided us with a lot of insights.

On the one hand we've conducted valuable and insightful interviews with Subject Matter Experts and potential users. On the other hand we did competitor research to understand the existing solutions and the ways to come up with even more robust and innovative ones.

Further we were able to draft the main features and categories of the system.

Users and the details of research

Method

Remote semi-structured user interviews in the format of Q&A sessions.

Interviewees

4 property managers dealing with paperwork-related tasks on a daily basis.

Sample questions asked

Uncovering the main pain points during a typical property management-related activity was our top priority when carrying out user interviews. Even though we didn't have many potential matches as the typical users of the product, we carried out four in-depth interviews to find out the main patterns of their work.

  • What does a typical property management registration process look like?
  • What tools do you use to register a single property?
  • What are your main challenges when carrying out the activity from beginning to the end?
  • How much time does it typically take to finish registering or managing a property?

2. Define

Key takeaways

Based on the initial results, some of the main takeaways of the interviews were:

  • Property managers tend to take care of almost all the paperwork including insurance on behalf of the landlords.
  • Their single paperwork activity typically includes work requiring the use of more than three different software, MS Word being one of those.
  • Being able to automate and centralize those activities would be a huge booster for their daily work.

Summing up the research data

Since there was a distinct algorithm of work that most of the interviewed property managers were following I decided to combine the research data into a thorough user journey map to better illustrate and understand their work and the pain points they have.

The customer journey map

3. Develop

Brand identity and design system development

In parallel with the creation of the wireframes for user testing, brand identity including logo and brand guidelines was crafted. The look and feel had to reflect value and speed to the system as well.

The geometric scheme behind the brandmark helped to create a dynamic yet balanced look.

SalesPacker logo structure

Digital and printed media assets were also included in the initial branding package.

A spread of the brand guide

The MVP scope

As we were ready with the initial scope of the features I started drafting the most essential flows that had to be covered in the first MVP scope. Because the backlog also had some really great features which still required a lot of effort on the development side, we decided to include those in the later stages of the product development.

Sales pack creation made easy.

The heavy lifting of filling in tons of fields on printable pdf documents is eliminated as the user goes through all the fields step-by-step. All actions are accessible from the very start.

The initial user registration step

Add and edit by a single click

All the data is easily modified and is accessible at every step of the process right away.

The modal for adding contact details

Effortless property management

All the packs of the properties are centralized and easy-to-access in the form of initial data tables.

The sales pack list

4. Deliver

User testing

User testing sessions followed the design of the first prototypes.

Method

Just as we were ready with the initial flows we jumped right into user testing sessions. The method was a structured user interview during which we asked the participants to complete a sales pack generation and think out loud as they go.

Interviewees

We reached out to the first interviewed property managers first to ask them about the main features of the platform.

Sample questions asked

  • Please try adding a salespack.
  • Please try adding or removing a key account associated with the salespack.

Some of the key takeaways from the first rounds of testing were:

  • Some property managers noted the initial color contrast to be not distinctive enough which was a major issue given the input-heavy interface they're going through.
  • Auto-saving the work in progress was another opportunity most of the users noted they would love to have as an addition as they went through the steps.
  • Another note on accessibility was the need to increase the font size of labels.
  • One major improvement everybody noted was the intuitive and easy to follow process with clear steps and descriptions.
A part of the refined prototype after one of the user testing session series

Summing up

Working on this product has been a big challenge given the tight timeframes and the specific niche market. However it was also an unforgettable experience requiring a lot of collaboration, time management and communication skills.