how can real estate businesses streamline management and communication?
Context
Sitenote is a web app that helps real estate and construction builders manage their projects and sites effectively and seamlessly by providing core features and solutions. Through this project, I honed my skills in product design (workflow planning and feature definition), research, and stakeholder communication, with a focus on delivering functional, intuitive, and user-friendly digital experiences. In addition to design responsibilities, I also worked on both the frontend and backend development, ensuring the product was technically solid and scalable.
Problem discovery
Real estate and construction often rely on Whatsapp and calls for communication which is time-consuming and not a very reliable and effective form of communication considering many types of individuals and departments are involved to achieve a common goal.
- The data and information aren't available to access easily, and there isn't one centralized information system in place.
- There is also a major communication lag between office staff and on-site staff.
Goal
A digitally centralized and synced workspace for
Research
The main method of research was in-person interviews with stakeholders.
I had a pretty good idea about this business due to it being a popular business in our family which helped me a lot to come up with a solution initially. I continued taking interviews and talking with stakeholders throughout the project.
Key findings
- Most users wanted to streamline communication, reduce calls and WhatsApp messages.
- Site workers had limited literacy in enterprise solutions.
- Users preferred to access only the features they needed in the app.
- Users had no prior experience with enterprise software.
Product scope & flow
Sitenote includes five major features that address a wide range of user demands which are displayed as channels.
As previously said, not everyone uses every feature. So I decided to create three user roles with different views and set up access accordingly.
For authentication, I used Clerk. The project is built with React on the frontend and Node.js on the backend. For real-time web notifications, I integrated Firebase.
Redefining booking and sales
During research, I noticed that booking and sales are aspects that can be heavily optimized by centralized communication. Booking tab will be used by Top level and office staff.
In booking channel, Project details, property listings, and customer information are centralized and accessible anytime, anywhere, by authorized users. Sitenote enhances visibility into the entire sales pipeline and process by consolidating all property and booking data...
Never miss anything and be in sync with teammates
You can not look at app every other 5 min to check if there is activity...
Solution! Activity tab, this helps users stay on line with everyone...
Tasks can be forgetful and complicated, let's make them simple and not easy to forget
Solution! Tasks channel is a versatile feature designed to help with creating, assigning and managing day to day tasks...
The app is currently used daily by the Sangani group in construction and the Opera group in real estate, and it has received positive feedback.
The Sitenote for web launched in April 2024. As the founder who discovered and designed this product...
