News Corp
Project Lead, UX Research, Rapid prototyping, User testing
NYC Media Lab connects digital media and technology companies with New York City's universities to drive innovation, entrepreneurship and talent development. A public-private partnership launched by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, NYC Media Lab funds prototyping projects that foster collaboration across a range of disciplines core to the future of media and runs The Combine, an early stage accelerator for emerging media and technology startups.
Organized by NYC Media Lab, this was a UI/UX research project between Parsons School of Design (Design and Technology program) and News Corp to explore the future of online real estate discovery and purchase. There was particular interest in alternate navigation schemes, the use of machine learning and making home purchase process more empowering and emotional for buyers. I interviewed and hired Dian Rachmawati, Miyeon Kim, Mikei Huang, Taylor Rodriguez and Aine Zhou from the Parsons DT program to assist in the conceptualization and development of prototypes that could be taken to focus groups for evaluation. The original goal was to produce a single prototype for user testing and we delivered seven distinct concepts. Below are the prototypes that I built for this month-long project.
Concept 1 - Couples
Mobile Walk-through
According to our demographic research 95% of home buyers are couples so I wanted to explore how an interface might support communication between buyers. How could an online experience surface individual values and promote productive offline discussion? In short, could the we lead users to learn more about one another?
The original video walk-through was around eight minutes so I got busy in the video editor to cut it down to a size that's more manageable for user testing.
To test assumptions about usability and responsive design principles I produced two videos, the desktop version and the mobile browser-based walk-through, both of which were shown to user testers via an online testing service.
Screenshots
Concept 2 - Visual Filter (Chicklets)
This concept was initiated by an existing sketch that the developers at Realtor.com had produced. It was a straight-forward visual filter system that would allow users to modify their search results quickly. I took their idea, cleaned it up and produced a video walk-through for user testing.
