Skip to content

→

Roofstock is a marketplace that makes real estate investing simple.

  • UX & UI design
  • Information architecture
  • UX research
Title
Senior Product Designer
Role
Was 1/3 of a Design team within a fast growing startup of 90.
Roofstock original product overview

Context

Roofstock makes it easier to invest in real estate and earn passive income.

They provide a marketplace of rental homes that already have tenants and certified inspection reports. They even have a 30-day money back. Roofstock makes real estate investing very accessible for busy professionals.

Role

Before I joined Roofstock, I was actually a customer of theirs.

I became part of their Design team that had a lead designer (my manager), a visual designer, and myself (who focused on UX).

I worked with each of Roofstock’s core product teams: the “Buyer, Seller, and Owner” teams. Each product team was led by a PM who I worked closely with.

Process & tools

UX & UI design

I worked on the UX of each core experience of Roofstock: Buy, Sell, and Own.

Roofstock had each experience mapped internally with a product team led by a fantastic product manager. Having strong product partners allowed me to focus more on solving problems vs. identifying them. It also allowed me to help more with design↔dev handoff communications via creating UI flow charts.

Roofstock UX flow with linked screen mockups
Example of a UX flow I created for my team. Clicking a UI screen thumbnail would open up the matching mockup.

Roofstock's UX isn't just their website's UI. Valuation and inspection reports are a core component of the buyer UX. As a Roofstock buyer myself, I sifted through a lot of reports that Roofstock provided.

So I also worked with the Buy PM to make our reports easier to consume.

Roofstock property report redesign
One of the reports I redesigned. Roofstock provides a ton of data, so good information design is important to their UX.

Information architecture

I ran information architecture (IA) studies to analyze how the site's IA was performing. I used Optimal Workshop and UserTesting to identity problem areas.

Roofstock information architecture study results
High-level results of the IA tests I conducted and analyzed. I wanted my team to see where the problem areas were in our 3 personas' journeys.

After identifying the problems, I worked with my design manager and PMs to propose a new IA. I then reran the same IA test to see if our proposal actually improved the conversation rates.

Eventually I found a proposal that significantly performed well from testing. The winning proposal was then implemented.

It's cheaper and faster to have me validate multiple proposals than to build out the first proposal right away.

Roofstock information architecture problem area
Zoomed-in view of an identified problem area.

Impact

While my time at Roofstock was short, I'm grateful to them for allowing me to impact each main product's UX. Roofstock taught me how important having a strong Product team is.

p.s. I must give a shoutout to Yena, Roofstock's former Design leader. She discovered the visual designer gem, Woojin, who I recruited to Magic! She also managed up and down so well I must credit her for providing such an amazing work-life while I was there (and for being an amazing designer & mentor).