Sent Enquiries 2.0
Creating a moving journey tool
Rightmove | Acquire team
April 2023 – June 2023
What is Sent Enquiries?
Sent Enquiries existed within Rightmove before I joined the team and was developed to address a user need. Before the introduction of Sent Enquiries, users interested in a property would contact an agent without having any record of their enquiry stored on Rightmove their end. The initial iteration of Sent Enquiries was a static list featuring all contacted properties, the message sent to the agent, notes, and property images. It’s functionality was limited and engagement relatively low.
The original design of Sent Enquiries – functionality was limited
The objective
The redesign of Sent Enquiries came from a business goal and a user need. Rightmove aimed to expand its tools beyond property search, becoming the go-to platform for the entire moving journey. Users expressed interest in wanting to be able to organise their static list of enquiries.
A snapshot of feedback left in Hotjar highlighting users desire to organise their enquiries
This sparked an idea within my team of enabling users to attach statuses to their enquiries as they move through the buying or rental process. This would help them organise their list and prompt return visits to Rightmove beyond the property search phase. It would also open the door to collecting precise data on users’ moving journeys, enabling us to better tailor products and advertising to them. I created the following ‘How might we’ statements as a springboard for this project:
- How might we allow users to update the status of their enquiries?
- How might we allow users to organise their enquiries?
- How might we encourage users to return to Rightmove after the ‘find’ stage?
Discovery into statuses
A snapshot of the analysis from the card sorting exercises
To identify the most relevant statuses reflecting users’ rental or buying journey, I ran card sorting tests on usertesting.com. The tests were divided between renters and buyers and resulted in a list of potential statuses. I collaborated with my Product Manager to figure out what statuses were in scope. Our goal was to provide enough statuses to reflect the moving journey but not overwhelm them with too many steps.
Statuses included in the redesign.
Organising the list
Before generating concepts, I wanted to figure out how to arrange users’ list of enquiries. After brainstorming all of the ways we could organise the list with my team, I focused on two of our preferred ways: organising it by time and by status. I made prototypes for both and tested them with existing users. The winner from testing was organising the list by status.
Concept generation
I organised a workshop with the design team to generate ideas on how we could present your enquiries. To maximise the sessions efficiency, I assigned each designer a specific focus area. For example, one designer tackled illustrating how properties could transition through statuses, another explored creating an engaging experience to encourage users to revisit, and another looked into ways to allow users to discard or hide uninteresting properties. Each designer was asked to solve their assigned focus area across multiple devices – desktop, tablet and mobile. At the end of the workshop we voted on ideas worth developing.
Concept generation workshop I ran with the design team
The two winning concepts from the workshop explored organising properties by status using either a side panel or tabs (shown below). To develop these ideas, I ran a balanced comparison test on both designs. I found mobile participants preferred tabs for easy navigation whilst remaining on the same screen, while desktop users preferred the side panel. I had concerns around using tabs across all devices, due to issues with scalability and horizontal scrolling not being advisable on desktop. So despite our normally mobile-first approach, we chose to opt for two different designs. We decided to use the side panel on desktop and large tablet and switch to tabs on mobile and small tablet.
Tab and side panel concepts
Property card IA
Once the page structure was established I began refining individual elements, starting with property cards. I ran a card sort via
usertesting.com to establish information hierarchy. High-scoring elements became primary info on the cards, mid-range were placed one click away in a modal, and low-scoring ones were excluded.
I had an assumption that the information users might require on the property cards could vary based on where they were in their moving journey. To validate this, I conducted a second card sort, specifically screening for participants at the offer accepted stage and onwards. For these users, I found that address took precedence over price at this point as they were no longer comparing multiple properties. Acknowledging this shift I decided that I should have a second layout for the cards once they reach the offer accepted stage in a larger format – celebrating their “chosen” property.
Card sorting results and its implications on the property cards
Bringing in delight
A goal of this project was to ensure users revisit Rightmove beyond finding a property. To achieve this, I aimed to enhance the experience with delightful touches, encouraging continued engagement. I replaced the B2B feeling ‘update status’ buttons with user lead action-oriented ones. This also reduced the process of moving a property into the next category to a single click. It encouraged forwards progression through the categories and helped to explain at a glance what the tool is for. I spent time focussing on micro-interactions by adding animation to the side panel category counters and property card hover states.
I wanted to make users feel like Rightmove is here for you during big moments, so upon progressing a property to the offer accepted stage there is a celebratory burst of confetti and a congratulatory success toast.
A short walkthrough of the tool
Dealing with painful moments
As well as celebrating success, I also needed to design for painful moments. I decided to remove the “offer rejected” category as it felt like a sad property graveyard. I introduced the option for users to archive properties they were no longer interested in, or had fallen through.
The tool, content and ad products
Upon almost finalising the design of the tool, I realised that we had a great opportunity to offer tailored, informative content that could align with exactly where users were in their moving journey. I decided to introduce the ‘what happens next’ section containing links to Rightmove’s blog articles. The content is relevant to the category you are in, telling you the information you need to know to progress a property to the next step.
Example of content shown in the ‘what happens next section’
The ‘what happens next section’ also provided opportunity to bring in ad products, like Rightmove’s Mortgage in Principle, broadband and contents insurance propositions. This marked the first instance in Rightmove where these products were strategically positioned in front of users at the precise stage in their journey at which they are relevant to them.
Announcing changes
The changes to Sent Enquiries were so significant that we couldn’t release them gradually. Instead, we launched most of the tool at once, resulting in a big change for users. To guide users on using the tool, I created an announcement flow. Sent Enquiries users tended to be active during their property search, but inactive until their next move. Because of this I added a prompt at the end of the flow, encouraging users to archive old properties they’d enquired about during their previous property search. This introduced them to the archive feature and freed space for new properties of interest. An announcement flow wasn’t in our design system, so this was a new component that I designed and added in.
Announcement modal flow
Measuring success
Before releasing any milestone, I run a HEART workshop with the team for us to determine our tools success metrics. For Sent Enquiries 2.0, the team decided to focus on measuring happiness, engagement, adoption and retention. GA tracking events were set up off the back of this workshop, alongside Hotjar and CSAT surveys for a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.
HEART workshop I ran with the team prior to the release of Sent Enquiries 2.0
Release and performance
We released Sent Enquiries in June 2023. Below are some performance metrics taken during the first month of release
- 82% of signed in users sending leads via Rightmove visited Sent Enquiries 2.0 (+7% on previous version)
- 24K of these users (14%) have changed the status of 65K properties
- 1400 users progressed a property all the way to ‘moved in’
- 20% improvement in bounce rate compared to the previous version
- Time on page increase of 12 seconds on the previous version
- 4.2 CSAT rating
- 74% said they loved or liked it
Overall, Sent Enquiries 2.0 was a resounding success. As well as effectively encouraging users to return to Rightmove, it ignited conversations within the business around the future of a moving journey tool. It helped visualise the potential space Rightmove could occupy beyond the property search phase.
Snapshot of survey responses
Areas for improvement and next steps
- Some small additional improvements came out of the feedback survey, such as the ability to see all photos and improving the visibility of notes
- At the moment, the tool only displays enquiries sent via email through Rightmove, not those made via phone. We plan on exploring ways in which we can either automatically or manually add in phone enquiries, ensuring users enquiries are all in the same place.
This is all of my work on to date on Sent Enquiries as of June 2023.
Key learnings
- The workshop that I ran to generate concepts with some members of the design team was a game changer. In just an hour, we generated six times more ideas than I could alone. I plan to replicate this approach during the concept phase in other projects, as it helped boost creativity, efficiency and de-siloed my work.
- My journey as a designer has taught me that even when something seems complete, there’s always an opportunity to elevate it. In this project, that ‘extra mile’ involved bringing in blog content and ad products to sit alongside the tool. I’m excited to see how this section develops in the future.