I led UX/UI design for Rea, a Paris-based startup developing a web and mobile app that helps real estate developers estimate and plan multi-family housing projects. The app creates real-time 3D models, allowing users to visualize and calculate development costs efficiently. I focused on crafting an intuitive, user-centered experience, using research, prototyping, and usability testing to simplify complex data and ensure accessibility for non-experts.
My role on the project was to lead UX and UI efforts helping a small team of architects, developers, and a data scientist move from ideas to usable solutions.
Our cross-functional team of five combined architectural expertise with tech-driven problem-solving. While our architects understood the industry, they were new to digital collaboration, and our developers lacked real estate knowledge. Bridging this gap, we used user research and rapid iteration to turn expert insights into an intuitive, accessible platform.
We needed to talk to users and learn more about their habits and goals.
To ensure we were solving the right problems, we:
Interviewed subject matter experts to gain insights into cost assessment challenges
Conducted online research on developing markets to identify key pain points
Narrowed our scope to focus on multi-family housing, leveraging team expertise
Reached out to developers in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Colombia, ultimately selecting Colombia due to our strongest understanding of the market
Based on the conversations with real estate developers from Colombia, we uncovered some insights and gained an understanding of their journey.
Then we started with remote white-boarding sessions and collaborative meetings to define the idea and high-level goals. We organized the thoughts that helped us decide on the most critical flows we wanted to start with. We also defined the next steps.
Our high-level goals that emerged from the sessions:
1. Streamline Project Scoping – Enable users to quickly estimate the scope of their real estate projects with minimal effort.
2. Ensure Accessibility – Design a platform that is intuitive and easy to use, even for non-architects.
3. Accelerate Decision-Making – Provide tools that allow users to create preliminary project designs within minutes, reducing time-to-insight.
We conducted competitive research to understand the landscape of real estate planning tools. Some solutions offered were highly-complex, while others lacked the seamless experience needed for non-experts. This informed Rea’s approach to prioritize usability while ensuring effective data integration for efficient project scoping.
We started by defining a high-level flow that captured the general structure of the user journey. This flexible base allowed us to gradually build more complexity, adding detailed tasks and features as the design evolved. By focusing on a broad, adaptable framework, we ensured the platform could scale and accommodate new features without compromising usability. This approach provided a solid foundation for both usability and data integration
First, we structured the platform’s information architecture to support navigation
Then, I built high-level workflows
Structuring workflows allowed the team to map out and plan on additional features systematically, ensuring they were logically placed within the user journey and integrated into the platform.
We were working collaboratively - I was reviewing my sketches and refining it further.
We created detailed low-fidelity sketches and worked on new features between. This process was not linear and we were alternating back and forth between sketches, lo-fi and hi-fi wireframes.
