The Broker Connection
Web design.
Ease the house hunting process in Uganda by connecting brokers to potential clients.
The Problem
Real estate in Uganda is an open market - meaning that there aren’t any clear laws that can help regulate brokers (also known as unlicensed real estate agents) in the industry, leaving room for con artists to thrive. In addition, local real estate agents, who are actually licensed, find it difficult to prosper because they do not have exclusive rights to sell someone’s property. Currently, due to the economic growth in the country, more foreigners are buying houses and looking to settle in Uganda, but these are the main victims of shady real estate brokers.
With that said, we can not do away with these brokers. They are a necessary evil because they have the information people looking for homes need and most importantly, they are familiar with the area and can easily navigate. This is important because in Uganda, we don't have clear addresses making it very difficult to find a place on your own if you are new to the area. Even with GPS it is quite difficult especially in suburban areas. Also, due to the high levels of fraud, the trust between brokers and clients has been broken making it quite difficult for them to earn a living and for people to find a broker they can trust.
Personas
Solution
To answer the question, 'how might we redefine real estate in Uganda considering the factors mentioned above', I decided on the following mission statement; “Ease the house hunting process in Uganda by connecting brokers to potential clients.”
This will be achieved through the following goals:
- Help people find a broker they can trust
- Dispel the fears associated with finding a broker to help you house hunt
- Inform people of the current state of the housing market so that they are not easily conned
High Fidelity Protoype
Design for trust
It was important to be as transparent as possible, by explaining the entire process of using the website step by step. I did this so that users can be confident when using the site and know exactly what to expect.
For foreigners, I added a section "New to the city?", that reassures them that the information on this site comes from trusted brands so they have no reason to doubt it. Sort of borrowing trust from others.
Testimonials were also added to serve as reassurance to users that other people have used the site and were satisfied with the service.
Broker registry
Currently brokers acquire clients by word of mouth, and posting notices on the side of the road with their contact details. This is not efficient because clients do not know who to trust and are afraid to call the numbers on those notices.
So brokers can register and their details will be displayed on the site. Since most of these brokers are not tech savvy and mayn’t speak English, registration is done by the site admin, that’s why I did not create a registration screen for them since it is not part of the main user flow, but it should be a basic form with fields to input the data displayed.
Verified properties
To reassure users that a broker can be trusted, the broker profile comes with a rating and client reviews defending their credibility.
Properties that they know about and are responsible for marketing are placed in their profile as well. A potential client can click on a card to expand it and check the property’s availability by sending a notification to the site admin who will confirm with the broker and provide feedback via email.
Due to the problem of an open market, it is possible for more than one broker to market the same property and neither one of them has the exclusive rights to sell that property. So, I added a badge to the properties listed on the broker’s profile to indicate that this broker actually does have rights to sell this property.
Professional team
The About Us page is the most important piece to the puzzle of gaining the user's trust. It is important to show them who exactly they are dealing with and that your mission and vision are in line with their goals.
Lessons Learned
During this exercise, I learned that it is important to guess less during the design process. Originally I thought designing a website that just lists available properties for rent would solve the problem, but that is not the case. Through my interactions with different users I learnt that when looking for homes in Uganda, they don't start with looking for properties on their own, they look for brokers first. So a site with just properties would have been useless. I also learnt the importance of not making the user change their habits to accommodate your solution, instead your solution should change to accommodate their habits.