Case Study · MoxiWorks · Dec 2017 – Mar 2018
Redesigned home search
for millions of buyers.
The context
Brokerage websites were losing. Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com kept raising the bar on search, and traditional brokerages couldn't compete on lead volume. But there was a real opportunity: improve the relationship between agents and their clients.
MoxiWorks' search tool was embedded in brokerage sites used by agents and buyers across the country. It was outdated, slow, and mobile experience was a consistent complaint agents heard from clients. We had to fix it.
The goal
"Deliver an improved home search experience that helps agents and clients collaborate — and gives our sales team something to talk about."
Decision 01
Declared the product was for consumers, not agents — before a single screen was designed.
The search tool was originally built for agents. That shaped every decision in it — the feature set, the information hierarchy, the complexity.
The first thing we did was get stakeholder alignment on who we were actually designing for. We made the call up front: this is a consumer product. That single declaration changed what we kept, what we cut, and what we prioritized.
It also meant some stakeholders had to let go of features they cared about. We got ahead of that early.
What research told us
Competition showed us the bar. Stakeholders told us where we were falling short. Data told us what to cut.
We were a scrappy team — no dedicated researcher, no big budget. So we divided the work: competitive analysis across Zillow, Redfin, Airbnb, and HomeAway; PM-led stakeholder interviews with Sales, Account Management, and key brokerage clients; and a review of every existing feature to find what wasn't being used.
From buyers
Proximity drives decisions
The 4 top homebuyer priorities: neighborhood quality, affordability, proximity to work, proximity to family and friends. Location wasn't just a filter — it was the whole job.
From stakeholders
Mobile was broken
Every internal and external stakeholder said the same thing first: mobile experience is failing. Agents were hearing it directly from clients. That set the priority order immediately.
From the data
3 features had near-zero adoption
Search by MLS#, search by MLS area, and set border radius. We cut all three. Less complexity, cleaner experience — and no one missed them.
From competitors
The bar had already been set
Inline photo galleries (Airbnb), prices on the map (Airbnb), listing card overlays (Zillow), draw-your-own-boundary (Redfin). We weren't inventing the space — we were catching up to it.
Decision 02
Surfaced DriveTime search. Research said commute was a top priority — it was buried.
DriveTime was a feature that already existed. You could search by commute time instead of location. But it was hidden, and almost no one used it.
Research made it clear: proximity to work was one of the four things homebuyers cared about most. So we brought DriveTime up front — a first-class tab alongside standard search, not a buried option.
The insight
Commute time is one of the top 4 homebuyer priorities. It was buried in the current product.
The decision
Promoted DriveTime to a primary tab alongside location search. Made the commute use case first-class.
The principle behind it
Design should reflect what users actually care about — not what's easiest to build or what already exists in the nav.
The design challenge
Generic, but not lifeless.
This was a white-labeled product. Every brokerage had their own brand — colors, logos, voice. We couldn't design for one brand. We had to design for all of them.
No style guide to start from. I built a responsive page structure first so engineering could move, then focused on a visual system that could absorb any brokerage's branding without falling apart. The answer was restraint: neutral base, emphasis on photography, clean type hierarchy.
The constraint forced better decisions. When you can't rely on brand color to do visual work, you have to design with structure.
Photo rich
Large photos not only look better — research shows they help buyers visualize themselves in a home. Photos do the selling. The UI should get out of the way.
Lightning fast
The previous version was slow and users complained. Speed wasn't a nice-to-have — it was a table-stakes requirement given what Zillow had already trained users to expect.
No keyboard required
Filters used text inputs that forced mobile users to type. We replaced them with sliders, toggles, and steppers. No keyboard for standard filtering tasks.
The designs
Mobile-first, photo-rich, no keyboard required.
Three views, designed around how buyers actually search: list for scanning, map for exploring neighborhoods, and filters that worked without typing.
Test and learn
First remote usability study we'd ever run. It found two real problems.
Getting participants scheduled had always been a pain point for a small team. This time we used a remote testing service for the first time. We tested on a real dev environment across three focus areas: search and filtering, map controls, and drawing custom boundaries.
01
Filters were being applied prematurely
Users set a minimum price, applied it, then came back to set a maximum. The filter UI didn't make it clear you could set a range in one step. You could sense the frustration from the recordings. We fixed the interaction model.
02
Map controls were invisible
Schools, draw, and boundary tools were at the bottom of the map. Nobody saw them. By far the biggest usability issue. We redesigned the control placement before launch.
03
The core experience landed
One participant said unprompted: "Definitely a lot quicker than Zillow, and slicker." That was the bar we were aiming for. The positive reactions gave us confidence to ship.
"Definitely a lot quicker than Zillow, and slicker." — Usability study participant
Results
Mobile-first focus paid off where it mattered most.
92%
of owners and managers satisfied or extremely satisfied with the redesign
+36.7%
change in unique pageviews to search on mobile devices
−20.7%
change in bounce rate on mobile devices
What I'd do differently
Get users in the room earlier.
We made excuses for not doing user research earlier in the process. By the time we ran the usability study, the design was already mostly baked. We found real issues — and fixed them — but we could have saved significant time if we'd tested with users during the iterate phase instead of at the end of it.
This project also introduced remote usability testing to the team for the first time. That practice carried forward into every project after it.
1st
remote usability study the team had ever run