Real Estate Brokerage Platform

Agents sit between two sides of every deal: sellers and landlords who list properties, and buyers and tenants looking for them. Most enquiries begin with a phone call, and the confidential client information gathered on those calls is one of the brokerage's most valuable assets.

Discovery drew on three sources. Client meetings showed how the business operated and how work moved between roles. The client's existing spreadsheets showed which client details agents were already collecting, so the system reflected their real data rather than an idealised version of it. A detailed requirements document, which arrived after the first discussions, let me validate and correct my early wireframes before costly decisions were locked in.

Four insights shaped the design. The person on the call isn't the person doing data entry: agents focused almost entirely on calls, so we introduced a dedicated data entry role and kept agent screens lean. Recorded calls were an untapped source of insight, archived but never replayed. With agents near zero in tech confidence, every extra click or hidden menu was a real risk to adoption. And deals don't end at matching: the platform had to support the full lifecycle, through to legal completion.

Rather than separate dashboards for each role, I designed one consistent layout around a left-hand navigation panel. The system shows or hides menu items and actions based on each user's permissions, so anyone moving between roles, or a manager helping an agent, always finds things in the same place. The core modules are the Dashboard, Sellers and Buyers, Properties (organised by house, apartment, commercial property and land), Projects, where apartment developments are saved once so new units inherit shared building details, and Staff.

Each property moves through a defined lifecycle, from registration to sold or rented, with permissions controlling which roles can move it to each stage. That gives every deal a clear, trackable status across the business.

I wired every module into a clickable Figma prototype, so each flow could be walked through end to end before development.

The client's needs evolved throughout the project, so the design went through several rounds of iteration rather than one linear pass. A new data entry role kept agent screens lean, a transaction coordinator role added mid-project extended the platform through to legal completion, and the communication trail gained attachments it was never scoped for.

I ran guided usability tests with agents. Because the interface was deliberately simple, they navigated the core flows comfortably once walked through them. The one learning curve was the communication trail itself, since an AI-generated record of client conversations was new to them. Once it was explained, they used it without difficulty, which told us the design was sound and that onboarding mattered as much as the interface.

As the only designer working with two backend developers, one frontend developer and two QA engineers, I made the Figma file the team's single source of truth. Handoff included an annotated page with instructions for every screen and flow, a separate role map showing what each role could see and do in every module, a component library, and a design system covering colour and typography. At the client's request the product uses a single light theme, with red accents drawn from their brand. Walkthrough sessions with developers covered intent, edge cases and role behaviour.

After moving to the new platform, the brokerage reported roughly 10% productivity growth (the client's estimate), one unified workflow in place of spreadsheets, a shared drive and WhatsApp, fewer properties left sitting idle, and higher staff satisfaction thanks to far less manual work. The platform is launched and in active use, with post-launch support from one of the project's QA engineers.