ImmobilienScout24 is Germany’s largest real estate portal with more than 12 million active visitors each month.
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OVERVIEW
ImmobilienScout24 is Germany’s largest real estate platform, helping people find the right property to rent or buy.
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MY ROLE​
I led design practices across cross-functional teams to embed a customer-centred approach to product development. We gathered weekly feedback and insights from property seekers through focus groups, interviews, usability testing, customer service input, and app store reviews—ensuring the voice of the customer informed every stage of the process.
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THE TEAMS​
The mobile team consisted of multiple product development squads, each focused on a specific business goal—core stability, growth, or customer satisfaction. Design specialists worked across these teams within a continuous delivery cycle, releasing new ideas to market every two weeks. A/B testing and analytics were used to evaluate impact on user behaviour and key business metrics.
RESEARCH
KICK-STARTING A USER CENTRED DESIGN APPROACH
​In week one, we conducted guerrilla testing at a local train station and hosted a focus group with active ImmobilienScout24 users. Through topic-based discussions, personal interviews, and usability testing, we uncovered key user challenges and product opportunities. We summarised these insights in a customer journey map, which helped align stakeholders and shape the product development roadmap.
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PRODUCT IDEATION & RAPID PROTOTYPING WORKSHOPS​
After identifying the key challenges faced by property seekers, I facilitated a series of ideation workshops with cross-functional teams. Through concept sketching and rapid prototyping, we explored potential solutions and quickly validated them with users.
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CONTINUOUS RESEARCH & USABILITY TESTING​
Research was continuous throughout the project. We ran weekly in-house interviews and usability testing sessions in a lab setting—regularly testing paper prototypes, interactive flows, and native app concepts. These ongoing insights deepened our understanding of user behaviour and continuously informed product strategy.
SOLUTIONS
The design process at ImmobilienScout24 was continuous and iterative. We gathered weekly insights from property seekers to refine our designs and deliver the best possible user experience.
THE SEARCH EXPERIENCE​
During the discovery phase, we learned that property searchers struggled to filter effectively and find relevant listings.
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Key issues included:
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Confusing location entry
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Unclear rental pricing (warm vs. cold rent)
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No way to filter for pet-friendly properties
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Lack of information about local amenities
We redesigned the experience to:
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Simplify and clarify location entry
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Clearly indicate whether rent included bills (warm) or not (cold)
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Enable filtering for pet-friendly properties
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Display property results on a map with nearby parks, schools, and public transport
LOCATION ENTRY​
Discovery research revealed a wide range of user needs when it came to location entry—from highly specific address searches to broader, region-based exploration.
To support this, we redesigned the location search experience to include:
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Specific address entry
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District-level search
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Draw-your-own search area
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Map-based browsing for wider regions
PROPERTY RESULTS​​
As with location entry, user preferences varied when it came to viewing property results—some favoured a map view, others preferred a list, and many wanted access to both.
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We designed a flexible split-view experience that:
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Defaulted to a combined map and list layout
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Allowed users to scroll up for a full list or tap the map to explore specific properties
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Kept search filters easily accessible at the top
To address user frustration around irrelevant or suspicious listings, we also introduced the ability to hide unwanted properties and report fraudulent content—giving users greater control over their search experience.
PRODUCT DELIVERY
DESIGN SYSTEM & STYLE GUIDE​
We built -platform design system to aid efficiency and consistency across the organisation. Every design was created for Android and iOS catering for all screen sizes and resolutions. ​
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TAKING A CONFIDENCE-LED APPROACH​
Usability testing allowed us to learn and iterate on product concepts. When we were confident with the approach, we defined the product roll-out plan with the team. Each concept was broken down into release phases with the focus of getting the product into the hands of consumers as quickly as possible to further test our hypotheses.​
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DEVELOPER COLLABORATION​
We worked closely with the software engineers to implement the best possible experience, working together to refine the intricacies of interaction and animation.
IMPACT
The redesign of the search experience saw app store ratings, user engagement and conversion rates increase significantly.
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4.3 star Play Store rating
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4.6 star iTunes App Store rating
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19% growth in monthly active users
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35% growth in monthly sessions per user
PROPERTY SEARCHER
Great App! The search update has made house-hunting so much easier!
PROPERTY SEARCHER
Best app in Germany for house hunt. multiple options with very nice owners to connect with. Totally loved it. Thanks team.
PROPERTY SEARCHER
Solid & reliable app, has been a great help for finding a flat in Berlin
PROPERTY SEARCHER