Perchwell | Consumer

The Challenge

Perchwell's core business was enterprise software for real estate brokerages, but their mobile app had consumer-facing origins that created an identity crisis. The app tried to serve everyone—casual apartment hunters and professional brokers—but satisfied neither.

The challenge was to redesign the Perchwell app to deliver a genuinely consumer-friendly experience while preserving (and enhancing) its utility for real estate professionals. This required rethinking the app's architecture, interaction patterns, and visual design from the ground up.

My Role

Product Designer · Led the complete redesign of Perchwell's iOS and Android app, from research and strategy through visual design and component library development. Worked directly with the engineering team on implementation.

Design Process

Auditing the Existing Experience

The original Perchwell app had been designed for consumers, then hastily adapted when the company pivoted to enterprise. This created significant UX debt:

• Navigation was confusing, with multiple ways to reach the same content
• The analytics feature (valuable for professionals) was buried
• Listing views and saved searches looked nearly identical, creating confusion
• The visual design felt dated and lacked the polish expected of consumer apps

I conducted a comprehensive audit, mapping every screen, flow, and interaction. I then benchmarked against consumer apps (StreetEasy, Trulia) and enterprise tools to understand best practices in both domains.

Strategic Direction

We decided to pursue a design strategy centered around creating a consumer and enterprise friendly app.

This wasn't about compromising between audiences—it was about recognizing that great consumer design and professional utility aren't mutually exclusive. The best tools feel effortless to casual users while revealing depth for power users.

Design Principles

I established three guiding principles for the redesign:

Explore seamlessly: Reduce navigation complexity dramatically. Create a central hub where users can easily access and discover features without hunting through menus.

Search with ease: Simplify the process of searching, filtering, saving, and returning to searches. Make the basic path obvious while keeping advanced options accessible.

Simple and beautiful design: Create a clean, reusable design language that elevates the entire experience. Every screen should feel intentional and polished.

Reimagining Navigation

The original app had navigation scattered across tabs, hamburger menus, and contextual buttons. I consolidated everything into a central hub with clearly differentiated views. Users could switch between feeds, saved searches, and favorites with a single tap.

This architectural change alone reduced user confusion significantly in testing.

Elevating Search

Search is where users spend most of their time in real estate apps. I redesigned the search experience with two modes:

Basic filtering for casual browsing—neighborhoods, bedrooms, price range—with a clean, approachable interface.

Advanced filtering for serious searchers—building amenities, listing history, days on market, specific features—available when needed but not overwhelming the default experience.

Saved searches with alerts became a first-class feature, making it trivial to monitor the market for specific criteria.

Property Detail Experience

Viewing individual listings needed to feel immersive yet informative. I redesigned the property detail view with hero photography, clear information hierarchy, and easy access to key actions (save, share, contact agent).

Design System Development

Beyond individual screens, I developed a comprehensive design system: color palette, typography, spacing, and reusable components. This system was designed to work across the native app and desktop web platform, ensuring consistency as Perchwell's product suite evolved.

Components included list views, card treatments, filter controls, map interfaces, and dozens of smaller elements—all documented and ready for engineering implementation.

Outcome

The redesigned Perchwell app successfully bridged consumer and enterprise needs, proving that thoughtful design can serve multiple audiences without compromise. The new design system established a foundation for future product development, ensuring consistency as the platform grew.

The project demonstrated a key lesson: sometimes the best way to serve power users is to make the product simpler, not more complex.