International Nav Bar    

Case Study

Problem: As we expand into new markets, our data is going to be limited. Many property tabs will have no data. We fear this will lead to a poor user experience. Also, while we can navigate and paginate to all information types in a property with all information types available, we can’t navigate or paginate from a property with fewer information types to a property with more information types without them both having that information type in common.

Solution: Offer a path to navigate from the properties with the least amount of information types, so the user can access information on properties with the most information types, even if they don’t have that information type in common. Also, provide the user with options to continue paginating through the current selected subject or offer an alternate experience.

 

My Role



Experience Problem

Below is an example of what the current international navigation experience will be like for properties outside the US, in countries such as Germany. So, why not simply suppress all the menu items that don’t have information? Because the product owners would like to suggest to the users that those buckets of information will be added soon.


Pagination Problem

The current issue arises when a user conducts a search that yields results in both the US and Germany, then selects a subject like "Sales" to paginate through. If the next or previous property in the result set lacks that subject, the current behavior directs the user to the "Summary" page of the adjacent result, abruptly interrupting their task and resulting in a subpar user experience.


Pagination Problem Continues

The user is sent to the “Summary” page of the next or previous property because the property has no information on the selected subject. There are two issues:

1. The user’s task is ended involuntarily.

2. The user has no way of knowing how many or which property in their result set has information in that subject area.


Problem Simplified in Review

The sketch below illustrates where the experience will break; these points are indicated by red arrows



Solution

Offer a path to navigate from properties with the least amount of information types so that users can access information on properties with the most information types, even if they don’t have that information type in common. Additionally, provide users with options to either continue paginating through the currently selected subject or opt for an alternative experience.




Solution Continues…

Now when the user paginates through “Sales” to the next or previous property in the result set that does not have sales information…

Solution Continues…

This is what the experience and result will be like.

1. The “Additional information” dropdown is in its active state and “Sales” is still selected on the dropdown menu.

2. The user is offered an explanation and options for how to move forward in their experience.


Solution Continues…

Added benefits of this solution:

1. We now also have a way to inform the user of how many subjects in the result set has the information on a specific subject.

2. We can now enhance the experience by giving the user the option to look at only those assets in isolation apart from the rest of the result set, if they so choose.