In need of a fresh coat of paint
It's 7:30 AM and Alex is already looking at project updates while getting ready for work. As a property portfolio manager overseeing 250 single-family homes across multiple markets, his daily routine includes fielding calls from his Lessen project managers, reviewing renovation statuses on MyLessen, trying to alleviate an issue with a gate code for a contractor, and prioritizing which properties need immediate attention to minimize vacancy periods.
"Every morning feels like a game of whack-a-mole," says Alex.
"I'm constantly jumping between properties, trying to figure out which projects need my attention most urgently."
For Alex and his fellow property managers, every vacant day matters. Each delay ripples through their portfolio, impacting revenue and performance targets. What Lessen had promised would be a streamlined process was creating bottlenecks they couldn't afford.
The numbers painted a clear picture: Lessen could get clients started in days, while competitors took months to set up. But that speed didn't matter if projects weren't moving forward. Something was keeping property managers from taking action, and we needed to figure out why.
Breaking ground
The dashboard wasn't a priority project, but customer feedback kept pointing back to it. Instead of waiting for my PM team to tell me when, I started digging into how property managers were using MyLessen. A quick review of the interface raised red flags, but it was the session replays that told the real story.
Watching users navigate the dashboard exposed a series of critical issues. Property managers were missing urgent tasks, struggling to resolve the ones they found, and were not utilizing much of the interface. These weren't just interface quirks – they were the building blocks of our project delays.
Key pain points
Hidden
Critical actions were buried in the MyLessen dashboard, causing customers to miss urgent tasks. This led to project delays and lost income as users struggled to resolve issues.
Unclear
Urgent tasks lacked clear descriptors for status forcing project managers and customers into time-consuming back-and-forth to progress projects.
Confused
Property managers most often viewed properties through search when resolving critical actions.
How did I identify these issues?
- Conducted a heuristic markup to quickly identify usability issues and annotated key areas of improvement based on established design principles
- Analyzed user-session replays to uncover pain points and observed user behaviors, identifying opportunities to improve task flows and interactions
- Interviewed customers to explore workflow frustrations and how MyLessen fit into their day.
With a starting point in hand, the objective became clear: simplify critical workflows so property managers could act and keep their projects moving and properties earning.
Sanding down the rough edges
If we surface urgent actions prominently on the dashboard, will users resolve blockers faster, reducing project delays?
Prioritize
Make critical actions clear and prominent and surfaced intuitively so users can quickly identify and resolve issues, reducing project delays and income loss.
Enable
Streamline customer actions to be completed within the system, eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth conversation and helping projects move forward faster.
Elevate
Prioritize property visibility to a more prominent position in the UI, minimizing reliance on search and allowing managers to locate key projects efficiently.
Early exploration
While juggling other projects, I saw a chance to tackle both visual and UX improvements to the dashboard. Instead of waiting for official sign-off, I created design explorations that showed what was possible. These mock-ups helped spark conversations with product managers about modernizing the interface while fixing core usability problems.
These concepts helped me engage the product team and got this work properly prioritized for a fall launch. Though they had a few more ideas...
A makeover of sorts
Up to this point, I had been advocating for customers to be involved in testing these concepts, but had been rebuked. With the help of the customer support team, I was able to get feedback from five customers that help inform our final vision.
On urgent actions
"This is much more clear to me regarding the action, but I don't know these reservations numbers. The address is how I identify the property"
"I'm not sure I need to create additional views for my properties"
On following
"I don't have any reason to follow a set of properties"
"Am I not already following properties I create projects for?"
A fresh coat of paint does wonders
Final design
After getting this feedback and working with the product managers to refine our requirements, I refactored the experience, using the customer insights to focus our execution and deliver the final touches to the interface itself.
The wow factor
The redesigned experience led to faster project completions, reducing vacancy periods and helping our clients' properties return to market sooner - directly impacting their revenue potential.
Progress Walks
Problem
Clients want to stay updated on the progress of a project, especially if they cannot visit the site in person due to their schedule.
The existing experience relied on FPMs uploading PDF documents with images captured with a third-party app. This made assessing progress from update to update cumbersome to review
Solution
Enabling photo capture through the Lessen FPM app allowed me to use the data to create and provide a Progress Update page for the client. This feature helps the client to easily track the project's progress by date and view its advancement over time.