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with Farinelli Real Estate

Redesigning Farinelli’s website for a better real estate experience.

Farinelli is a top-tier real estate agency specializing in luxury living in the vibrant city of Rio de Janeiro. The company has recently gone through a redesign to make the user experience more streamlined and easier to navigate. This case study will explore the design changes that have been implemented and assess their effect on the overall user experience.

The challenge

The objective for Farinelli was to develop a cutting-edge, user-friendly website that accurately reflected its status as a top real estate agency specializing in luxury living in Rio de Janeiro. Farinelli needed to upgrade both its old website and its branding identity.

The solution

The solution was a complete redesign of Farinelli’s website, making it highly intuitive with a modern look and feel that accurately reflected the agency's position as a leading provider of luxury living in Rio de Janeiro. Also a new branding identity was designed to be more sophisticated, with a focus on clean lines and bold typography that would resonate with the agency's target market.

The outcome

Its redesign and new brand identity helped it stand out in Rio de Janeiro's highly competitive luxury housing market. Testers provided positive feedback after rounds and iterations of testing, indicating that prospective clients of Farinelli would seriously consider contacting them after using the website.

Key Objectives

We want to attract potential clients to enjoy an exciting and seamless experience. How to achieve that?

Maximize usability for all, everywhere

Enable users to manage time better

Include interactive elements to successfully showcase properties

The Process

Research was done to

Help better understand business and user needs of the real estate industry to address the presented problem.
Gain a better grasp on how average clients use and perceive real estate systems.

The research helped

Define The future state of the product.
The kinds of clients that would use Farinelli’s website, and how the future state of Farinelli will be organized.

The Design phase

Was used to build out how Farinelli’s future website will look and operate.

The solution to the problem was

Validated Through several rounds of user testing to identify any pain points within Farinelli’s new platform.

Design

Validate

Research

Define

Researching the Real Estate Industry

Research goals

Determine how other luxury living real estate companies handle their online web presence to identify weaknesses and strengths to apply that analysis to Farinelli’s website.
To analyze the challenges and opportunities facing Farinelli as a luxury real estate agency in the highly competitive market of Rio de Janeiro, with a focus on emerging trends in the market.

Secondary Research

I set out to understand the present situation in the real estate industry in order to better explain the challenge that Farinelli was trying to resolve. The high-end real estate market in Rio is still booming, despite the economy's ongoing recovery from extremely difficult times. According to Abrainc-Fipe indications, the introduction of properties in this area increased 278% between March 2021 and February 2022.

Competitive Analisys

Once I had a better grasp on the scope of the industry, I conducted an analysis on direct competing companies that Farinelli is similar in terms of size and target market. This information helped me to identify both distinctive and common practices across different high-end real estate platforms at all stages of the user's experience.

Sitemap Creation

Starting with a significant sitemap that listed all of the many screens a user would see while entering Farinelli's website, I started building the information architecture of the website. This served as a vital piece of the structure that helped me define how Farinelli would look like during the design process.

Once research was completed, the proposed solution was to create a new brand identity and redesign version of Farinelli's website with the goal of streamlining the user flow and attracting new clients.

Building out the Designs

Wireframes

After defining the product and doing as much research as possible, I then started wireframing out key screens such as the landing page and product listing page in three different responsive sizes for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

Building

Once I had a general idea of how the website was going to look from the wireframes, sitemaps, and user flows, I then built out a brand logo and look.

Validating the Solution

User Experience Testing

After creation of the high-fidelity wireframes, I created a working prototype and conducted usability testing with several potential users. The broad testing goals were to test overall functionality of the prototype, identify major hinderances to user flow in design, and observe if the user is easily able to complete the task given to them.

Key Findings

The importance of personalization: High-end clients like Maria are looking for a personalized experience when searching for a luxury property. They want to work with a real estate agency that can understand their needs and preferences, and offer tailored services that meet those needs.

The value of a user-centric website design: By creating a website that prioritizes the user experience, Farinelli was able to streamline the property search process and make it more efficient and effective. A user-centric website design can help real estate agencies to stand out in a crowded market and build stronger relationships with clients.

The role of branding identity: A strong branding identity is critical for real estate agencies that want to position themselves as leaders in the luxury real estate market. Farinelli's refreshed branding identity helped the agency to stand out from its competitors and establish a reputation for excellence and sophistication.

The need for strong communication: High-end clients like Maria expect regular updates and clear communication from their real estate agent. By providing strong communication throughout the property search process, Farinelli was able to build trust and establish a stronger relationship with its clients.

The importance of location: The location of a property is a key factor for high-end clients, and real estate agencies that can offer properties in desirable locations will have an advantage in the market. Farinelli's focus on luxury properties in Rio de Janeiro helped the agency to attract clients who were looking for properties in this highly desirable location.

Defining how users will interact with Farinelli’s website

The redesign of Farinelli Real Estate's website and branding identity has yielded a highly successful outcome. The new website has an intuitive interface that provides Maria and other clients with a seamless and personalized experience, making the property search process more efficient and effective. The refreshed branding identity has helped to position Farinelli as a leading provider of luxury real estate services in Rio de Janeiro. As a result, Farinelli has seen an increase in inquiries, viewings, and successful sales, which has had a positive impact on the agency's revenue and reputation. By focusing on the needs of high-end clients and delivering a superior user experience, Farinelli has demonstrated a commitment to excellence that has helped the agency to stand out in a crowded market and build long-lasting relationships with clients.

Click here to view the prototype.

The Outcome

My role:

UX Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer

Client:

Farinelli Real Estate Agency

Focus on the User Experience (Interviews)

To find out what drives people to search for homes online, as well as their surfing habits and any pain points they encounter along the various stages of a user's journey, interviews were performed with a number of potential users of differing ages, gender identities, and browsing patterns (Consideration, Selection, Purchase, and Retention).

Interview Findings

Once interviews concluded, I was able to identify pain points, goals, and needs that helped me empathise with users of high-end real estate websites. Every potential user interviewed said that their number one goal when house hunting online was to visit properties that had high quality pictures and video. They also mentioned that a quick response time from the agencies is crucial when you have a limited availability of time for viewings.

Scope Breakdown

Persona - Meet Maria da Silva

Users Task Flow

A user flow was also created to understand the decision-making would be going through the user when using this website. This was a key document to understand exactly how a potential user would interact with the future state.

The creation of the logo.

I was in charge of contributing to the visual direction and composing the original music for the teaser in the video animation we created for the video tours.

Click below to watch the video!

High-Fidelity Wireframes

I then integrated all of the previous steps to create three distinct versions of high-fidelity wireframes for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices using my initial wireframes and style tile. The key user flow of a potential customer entering the website, searching for a particular home, and scheduling a visit was fleshed out in the wireframes.

Our team finally settled on this color scheme after multiple attempts.

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