out east: A home search fit for the hamptons
The challenge:
How many times in the last month have you hit up Zillow just to “poke around”? It’s okay, you can be honest. During my time working for Zillow’s New York team, I built a variety of experiences that catered both to curiosity browsers and homebuyers and sellers alike. When we set out to build Out East our goal was to give one of the world’s most particular real estate markets—the Hamptons—a website befitting of the lifestyle. The results? A brand new, scratch-designed sit pairing the playful, beauty fun of a summer vacation with the high-dollar houses that dot the Hamptons’ coastlines. I partnered with UX designer, PMs, and Hamptons real estate experts to craft an experience that supercharged Zillow’s Hamptons zip-code business.
home is where the hamptons are
As we geared up to launch this new site, we dug into building new brand tenants (high-dollar and light on its feet), we conducted user testing to figure out what’s important to Hamptons home hunters (come on, a tennis court is a non-negotiable, right?), and then mapped out the full site map and information architecture from header to footer. And of course we headed Out East to the Hamptons ourself to, uh, sample the local culture.
Below you find everything a fresh new website would need: A splashy home page, a menu to save homes you like, a map-search and filter experience, and an error page in case you lose your way.
Go to market
Launching a site means developing a product marketing strategy. I partnered with Zillow New York’s leadership, top real estate agents in the area, and a scrappy-but-effective marketing team to develop a go-to-market plan that included full email series, social media campaigns, in-market magazine print ads, and even one of those plane banners you see at the beach (man I wish I got a picture of that).
my role at out east
UX Content Strategy
IA and sitemap development
Wire-framing and content design
Brand and voice development
Creative direction
UXR
In-market A/B testing