top of page

EquityMultiple 
Product Design Internship

Redesigning the referral program on web page to increase investors' incentives.

EM banner illustration.png

OVERVIEW

I joined EquityMultiple's Product & Engineering team as a product design intern in summer 2019. Collaborated closely with engineers and the product manager, I redesigned the Invite page to better facilitate people who want to refer their friends. I was responsible for the project from end to end, and crafted the in-app experiences, including How it Works, Referral Link and My Invitations for desktop.

TEAM

EquityMultiple Product Team

WORK

Web Design, Visual Design, UX Research

TOOLS

Figma, Principle, Illustrator, Pencil ✏️

DURATION

May 2019 - August 2019 (10 weeks)

Outcome

Outcome

Overview

Overview

Designing a new offering that streamlines the invite process and helps the real estate investors understand our referral program through reward incentives.

Inspirations

"Trust people we know"

Instagram problem illustration (1).png

The referral program is the most influential form of advertising, according to Nielsen (2013). Roughly 84% of users trust referrals from people they know. We thus wanted to design a new way that can streamline investors' invitation process and helped them understand our referral program through reward incentives.

friendship.png

84%

of people trust referrals from people they know​

collaboration.png

18%

churn rate as low as for referred users, according to Knowledge@Wharton

Challenge

How might we motivate more existing investors to invite their friends to become new investors?

How might we design a new way that can streamline the invitation process and can be taken by the company's referral system?

My Responsibilities

Our capstone project consists of three interns, including two engineering and one design intern. I was lucky to take the initiatives, and led the project from end to end process. I also met and worked with a group of inspiring product managers, designer lead, and engineers who provided thoughtful feedback through our critiques. 

Challenge
Research

Research

auditing icon.png

Audit

I was able to synthesize qualitative data into actionable insights through interviews and research results. I began with an audit of the workflow for the company's existing referral program. The steps taken to send an invite through the invite page is to 1) click the "invite" button, and 2) click the "copy link" button, and finish.

Current Invite Page.gif
competitive icon.png

Competitive analysis

Then I looked into some real estate crowdsourcing platforms and examined their referral pages based on the following matrix in a comparison table. I found that all of them adopt email invitation as a primary method to reach out to new users, while only one of them allows existing users to check their invitation status (calling to action). In addition, they generally have two predominant referral benefits, 1) waiving advisory fee and 2) higher return rate on the next investment for the inviters. 

EM-Competitor Analysis.png
heuristics icon.png

Heuristic

analysis

I also adopted the heuristic analysis and identified where the page had weakness given the list of predefined design principles. Based on that, I concluded some problems that existed in the program:

Investors would think program information is less findable while navigating the Invite page

There is less incentive for investors to refer to their friends

There is no call to action after investors try to refer their friends

targeting user icon.png

Targeted

users

Our intern team identified two types of users who used our platforms frequently and thus have incentives to refer friends. I created two personas that represent the user groups:

Persona1.png

Grace

Earner

Investment Needs:

• Predictable, consistent cash flow as her household

• Investment tracking

• Investor relations support along the way, needs coaching

Goals for Using Referral Program: clear instructions about the program, and keep track of invitations on time

Persona2.png

Jonathan

Planner

Investment Objectives: very knowledgeable about real estate. Focused on investments that provide current income

Goals for Using Referral Program: easy access the referral program, clear instructions, understand how it works, and earn more credits toward the future investment

EM-Infographic timeline.png

User flow

The key insights from the research allowed me to revisit the goal to design a new way that can streamline the invitation process and help the real estate investors understand our referral program through reward incentives. Here is a new user flow that draws from the insights above:

User Flow
Information Architecture

Information
architecture

An structured information architecture provides better clarity for the project and a better understanding to the features, decision layers, hierarchical levels for the new referral program. 

EM-Information Architecture.png
EM-Ideation sketches.png
Ideation

Ideation

Before embarking onto preliminary user testing and high fidelity mockups, I brainstormed on sketches for possible UI design solutions to earn a feel for the referral page and its core features.

Design Evolution

Design evolution

em-solution background - no mask.png

Personalized Banner

Exploration 1_ banner.png

How it works

Users should quickly know what the referral program is, and what benefits they can get from it. During the critique we voted option D because we hope investors to spend the minimal time reading the information. This should optimally enhance their understanding and thus incentive for them through strong visualization.

Exploration 1 - how it works.png
Exploration 3 how it works cont..png

Referral links

Inspired from the audit during my research process, I came up with two different structures that both intend to strengthen user's interaction on the referral process. Ultimately our team voted the option B because we wanted to prioritize the email invite option, as in the research finding shows most users would easily do so.

Exploration 2 - referral a.png
Exploration 2 - referral b.png

"My invitations"

I remained the original design layout of the My Invitations section, where the pending and investing were included in the same box, but I intended to provide a more straightforward solution space that eases user's interaction in tracking invitation and credit-earning status.

Exploration 3 - invitation.png
Interface

Interface

An overview of the redesigned invite page that is more accessible to investors by incorporating the four new features above

Email Referral - visual with hover.png
EM - Visual guideline (black).png
Visual Guidance

Visual Guidance

I followed EquityMultiple's design language when choosing fonts and color palette. I wanted to create a easy and approachable application that users would find it convenient to use. Blue (#46BEE5), Green (#60cc18), Yellow (#FD8309) are my primary color that represents the firm's theme, while blue and gray colors are my secondary choices that support the fluency of some important UI components such as fonts, columns, dropdown menus and shadowing effects. 

Testing
1. Before
2. After
Takeaway

Testing

Current invite page mockup.png
Current-invite-page-mockup.gif

Takeaway

  • From end to end: I led this capstone project during my summer internship, in which I worked closely with engineers and product manager to determine the best solutions for our referral program.

  • Sync with the team: Engineers were involved early in the design stage when they helped run the ideation and contributed lots of cool ideas. It was important to support their work and tackle challenges together because ideas are not easy to be built.​​

EM-Takeaway illustration.PNG
  • Soft skills and communication matters: I practiced active listening, frequently taking notes, being confident about my own designs while following company's design guideline are things both easy and hard. I allow myself to make mistakes, but humble to change to be better and better.

  • A new field - tech ecosystem in cities: It broadens my view on how technology can impact the cities - which enlightens my curiosity to design for the future of cities with a humanistic context.

bottom of page