View Project Prototype
Trademe
Overview
Trade Me is a large online auction and classifieds marketplace in New Zealand. It's a prominent platform for buying and selling a wide range of goods, including electronics, clothing, cars, real estate, and more. On Trade Me, the "Property feature" refers to specific attributes, amenities, or selling points of a property that are listed in a real estate listing. These features help highlight what makes a property appealing to buyers or renters.
This project is focused on improving “property feature” with a open home planning feature.
Role
Product Designer
User research, Interaction, Prototyping and Testing
March 2025 - June 2025
Design Process
Discovery
In 2023, I moved to New Zealand and spent over six months actively searching for a home. Every weekend was dedicated to visiting open homes. Typically, open homes start around midday and finish by 2 pm, with most viewings lasting only 30 minutes and some extending to an hour at most.
To make the most of the limited time, I found myself constantly switching between 3–4 different websites to plan my open home itinerary. The process was time-consuming, frustrating, and mentally exhausting.
I began to wonder: Do other house hunters face the same challenges?
To explore this, I conducted interviews with 7 groups of people currently looking for a home. Below are the key insights that emerged from these conversations:
01
Planning Requires Too Many Tools
"I had five tabs open—Trade Me, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and some agency website. It felt like I was building a travel itinerary, not house hunting."
02
Time Conflicts and Travel Gaps Are Hard to Manage
“Some homes were just 5 minutes apart, but scheduled at the exact same time. It was frustrating to miss good ones just because of bad timing.”
03
Manual Calendar Workarounds Are Common but Inconvenient
"I had to copy everything into Google map manually. One mistake and I’d miss a house."
04
Lack of Location Awareness in Listings
"No one tells you how far one house is from the next. You only find out after it's too late."
05
The Process is Exhausting and Demotivating
"Every Friday I’d do the same thing: look at listings, sort the times, map it out. It got old fast."
Insights
House hunters are forced to juggle multiple platforms to gather addresses, times, and property details, which increases friction and mental effort.
Users struggle with overlapping open home times and inefficient travel routes, often resulting in missed opportunities or wasted time between visits.
To stay organized, users create their own open home calendars, but the process is tedious and prone to human error, with no native integration or reminders.
Listings rarely help users understand travel times or distances between properties. Users want a way to visualize and optimize routes in advance.
Repeated weekly planning takes a toll. Many users said they felt drained by the logistical burden, especially when the search dragged on for months.
Problem Statement
House hunters in New Zealand struggle with inefficient and fragmented tools when planning weekend open home visits.
The current process involves manually gathering listings from multiple websites, copying addresses into Google Maps, and trying to coordinate overlapping viewing times. This results in a stressful, time-consuming experience that often leads to missed opportunities and emotional burnout, especially for those searching over several weeks or months.
Project Vision
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Enable users to visualise property listings on a map to enhance spatial awareness and simplify route planning.
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Streamline the open home planning process by centralising key actions: search, schedule, and map in one unified platform.
Main Feature
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Save and Visualise Properties on the Map
Save selected properties to a personal plan and instantly view them on an interactive map, helping users understand spatial relationships and avoid unnecessary travel back and forth.
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Map-Based Plan Editing
Edit open home visit plan directly on the map:
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Add or remove properties
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Sort visits automatically by optimized route
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Manually adjust the visiting order by dragging items on the map
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Filtering by Time and Location
Easily filter open home listings based on available viewing time slots and preferred geographic areas, allowing users to quickly narrow down realistic options.
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Export to Third-Party Navigation Tools
Export finalised itinerary to external apps like Google Maps or Apple Maps for real-time navigation and sharing with others.
Information Architecture
To reduce friction between property saving and planning, I embedded the Viewing Planner directly into the Watchlist. This allows users to transition seamlessly from collecting listings to organising open home visits without switching context or platforms.
User Flow
This flow illustrates how users transition from saved properties to a finalised open home itinerary. Starting in the Watchlist, users open the integrated Viewing Planner, apply filters to narrow down options, and visualise results on both a map and list view. They can then edit the visit plan by adding, removing, or reordering properties. Once satisfied, users export the plan to Google Maps or their calendar for real world use.
Wireframe
Based on the identified problems, I explored and designed potential solutions to address these pain points.
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Open Home Planner List View: Shows key details such as property name, open home time, and status (added, removed, etc.)
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Filters (Time & Location): Let users narrow down visible properties to match their availability and preferred area
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Map View: Displays the geographical location of saved properties, allowing users to visualise spatial relationships and optimise travel routes
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Map View with route: The Map View allows users to interactively adjust their open home itinerary.
Validating Design - Web
I conducted usability testing sessions with primary users to validate whether the new designs addressed their core needs. During the sessions, I observed how users interacted with the prototype in real-time.
One key insight was that the map-based sorting lacked flexibility. Although the default plan sorted visits by open home time, this occasionally led to inefficient or overlapping travel routes in the real world. Users expressed the need for more control over the visit sequence, balancing time slots with geographic logic.
I introduced multiple sorting options directly within the map interface. In addition to the default time-based sorting, users can now:
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Sort by optimal route (minimising travel distance)
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Sort by earliest open home time
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Manually drag and reorder stops based on personal preference
Property App
Information Architecture
Trademe Property App
Wireframe
Trademe Property App
Validating Design - App
Process of making viewing plan
Map view editing
View Saved Plan
Results and takeaways
To validate whether the new designs addressed users' core needs, I conducted usability testing sessions with primary users, observing how they interacted with the prototype in real-time.
A key insight emerged: the default time-based sorting on the map lacked flexibility, often leading to inefficient and overlapping travel routes. Users expressed a clear need for more control over the visit sequence, balancing open home times with geographic convenience.
In response, I introduced multiple sorting options within the map interface, allowing users to:
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Optimal route (minimising travel distance)
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Manually drag and reorder stops
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Toggle between time-first and location-first logic
This iteration gave users greater control over their itinerary, enabling them to plan more efficient, realistic, and personalised open home visits.
Ultimately, by providing an all-in-one, map-centered planning tool, this design significantly reduces user effort, minimises context switching, and enhances overall user satisfaction throughout the open home planning process.