Daft.ie
Daft is Ireland’s biggest property search platform, allowing users to get the most up-to-date market information and connecting agents with prospective buyers.
The problem
Distilled SCH owns 3 of Ireland’s largest marketplace platforms, DoneDeal, Adverts and Daft.ie. Running on a legacy monolith the decision was made to migrate all brands to a single micro services platform.
I was a key member of the team that designed and developed a multi layered design system to work across the different brands. I helped to define the core concepts and architecture of the system. I created the designs and specifications of the components within the system.
The main goals of creating the system included: Design consistency, speed of development, reduce waste, future proofing and flexibility.
Defining the goals
I organised several workshops with key stakeholders to define the goals and key metrics for the system. During the workshops I proposed to build a micro system as a POC to help define the structure and workflows. I also ran an internal brand survey and workshop to help define the Daft brand - which would be the first brand to use the system.
System structure
We developed a themeable design system that would be able to work across the different brands that DistilledSCH owned and that would be able to scale as the company scaled. At the heart are the core components, html versions stripped of all visual styling - internally known as shared components as each brand could use these. On the outer layer you have the branded versions of the shared components or as we called them ‘re-useable components’.
“With the structure and workflows in place it was time to deliver features and add components to the system as they were built”
Search
After conducting competitor analysis it was clear that the current Daft search was no longer keeping up with users expectations. This sentiment was backed up by users during interviews where they expected a ‘google style’ search.
These insights lead to initial concern from internal stakeholders who were apprehensive about changing the current drill down location search, so I needed to show the value.
I set up a number of remote user tests where I compared daft.ie with a UK competitor. The findings were clear, users preferred and found the text search easier and quicker to use.
Filtering
The current filtering system on Daft was inconsistent both visually and functionally. I surveyed just over 1000 Daft users to understand what was important to them when looking for a property. The results of this survey informed the priority of filters and also helped filter out those that were irrelevant. The visual style and interactions needed to work on desktop and be easy to use on mobile with large hit areas. Filters on mobile take up the entire screen to help focus users on the task at hand.
Map view
I conducted competitor analysis to understand the current best practices. I used the findings of this research and feedback from users to understand how we could design a best in class map experience. Zoom levels were essential to this, having clusters appear at higher levels.
For desktop users a split screen experience was designed to allow users to see the search results and map at the same time to give them more context. For mobile users the map view is displayed full screen to allow them focus on the task at hand - they can easily toggle between the list and map views.
User testing
As more and more features were migrated over to the new platform we were now able to start testing the site with end users. I organised and facilitated tests on the search, search results and property details sections of the platform. I was able to identify issues with the new search implementation and quickly iterate the designs.
Incremental improvements
With the design system in place and a fully working Beta site we could move faster and make improvements to the flows. I could quickly prototype ideas to validate with the team and then quickly implement the changes within the design system ready for delivery.