The Mobile Inspection Tool is a user-friendly mobile app that helps real estate appraisers work more efficiently. It lets them quickly take notes during property inspections and automatically syncs everything with their desktop tools back at the office.
This real-time syncing saves time and keeps things organized. When it's time to put together a full report, all the data is already waiting on their desktop—making the whole process faster, easier, and more streamlined.
The appraisal industry is evolving fast, but many experienced appraisers are still stuck using old, time-consuming methods. Taking notes by hand, snapping photos with a separate camera, and then manually transferring everything to a computer—it’s a slow, clunky process that eats up time and limits productivity. How might we streamline this workflow to help appraisers work faster, smarter, and with less hassle?
As part of our user research, we spoke with 10 residential appraisers, using a variety of qualitative methods to really understand how they work. These conversations—held both in-person and online—gave us a closer look at their day-to-day routines and the real challenges they face on the job.
We also ran usability sessions to see appraisers in action, which gave us valuable insight into where things slow down, what frustrates them, and where there’s room for improvement. By stepping into their world, we were able to build a clear picture of their needs, habits, and goals.
From all of this, we created a detailed user persona that captures the key traits and struggles of our target audience. This persona now guides our design decisions, helping us create tools that genuinely support appraisers and make their work easier and more efficient.
.png)
Before moving into the wireframing phase, we prioritized defining a clear user flow. This was a critical step in understanding the overall system architecture and identifying the necessary API connections between the mobile and desktop applications. By aligning the app structure with the flow of a standard appraisal report, we ensured our design decisions were grounded in real user needs.