Eden Conveyancing

1. Research

User interviews / Affinity Mapping / Trend Analysis / Workshops

To start, we needed a clear understanding of our customer segments. I led a customer segmentation research effort and facilitated a workshop with stakeholders and product owners. Together, we brainstormed the behaviors, geographics, attitudes, and demographics for each of our key audiences.

After compiling the insights, we identified prominent themes that emerged across segments. These insights directly informed the design of our interview scripts, ensuring we tailored questions to the right audiences. For example, we anticipated that first-time buyers would approach conveyancing very differently from those who had navigated the process previously, so we designed our research to capture these nuanced perspectives.

2. Deeper User Research

User Interviews / Synthesis / Brand Identity

Before diving into the brand identity itself, our user interviews revealed exactly how customers perceived and felt about the conveyancing process and the picture was not flattering.

Across all segments, five key themes consistently emerged, which directly influenced our feature roadmap:

• Transparency
• Trust
• Communication
• Price & Fees
• Organisation

Once the research was synthesised, we ideated solutions focused on reducing stress during what is often one of life’s most challenging processes. These insights also informed our brand positioning, identity and archetype decisions, ensuring the brand resonated with real user needs.

Brand Identity

Brand Archetypes / Naming Workshop / Typography & Colour / Testing

By engaging with our audiences through collaborative working and user interviews, we were able to understand the overall archetypes of the brand.

Where did we want the brand to sit on the archetype wheel and why? It soon became clear that Eden needed to embody the Sage and Caregiver archetypes to be a calming, understanding voice in an industry filled with legal jargon and stress.

Using our insights from customer segments and the defined brand archetypes, I facilitated a naming workshop to generate a list of potential names. After narrowing the options and validating that no other companies were using them, I took the shortlisted names through user validation.

Building on the research and workshop outputs, I designed concepts for three core aspects of the brand: colours, typography, and the logo. Once stakeholders had narrowed the options to three, we conducted a survey to test preferences.

Using Lyssna, we surveyed 300 participants matching our target market demographics. While the green palette did not score highest overall, we decided to proceed with it based on user comments highlighting why it resonated most with them. They used the exact words we wanted to see to counteract the negativity uncovered in our user research.

Next Up: The Product

How might we? / Problem Statements / Iterations

Using the five core themes from user interviews and progressing through a series of UX workshops to define problem statements and eliminate poor ideas, we identified the following priorities for the MVP:

Website with:

• An easy-to-understand online quote
• Identity verification

A portal featuring:

• A financial summary
• A task dashboard

Once the concepts were converted into wireframes, we conducted usability testing with a range of users to assess whether they liked the concepts and could navigate them easily.

The testing did uncover a few minor issues, such as toggling between all tasks versus just personal tasks, but these were deemed non-critical and could be addressed in later iterations.

The key features were very well received by participants, particularly those who had previously experienced the conveyancing process.

Transparency = Case Dashboard

Our interviewees reported that they never knew what was happening during the conveyancing process. They simply did not know who was responsible for what, when, or whether they needed to take any action. This lack of clarity, combined with poor communication from lawyers, caused significant stress and left them feeling that their sale or purchase was not progressing.

The case dashboard has become an immensely successful feature for end customers, as it helps them feel in the loop and understand exactly what is happening, when, and by whom.

However, multiple testing sessions later revealed that too much transparency could also cause anxiety. Due dates, which are less rigid in conveyancing than we initially assumed and do not affect exchange or completion, were causing concern among customers who feared that their lawyer had missed a deadline.

We have since reworked the dashboard to display date ranges instead of fixed due dates, and the number of complaints has decreased.

Better Communication = Instant Messaging

The lack of communication in the industry is a major problem and contributes significantly to stress levels. Slow and confusing responses create considerable stress, but many people also reported feeling that conveyancers speak to them in a way that makes them feel like a burden.

It was therefore not just the frequency and timeliness of responses that mattered, but also the tone and how end users were addressed by conveyancers.

The messaging feature is designed to provide an instant feel. Users can also reply to messages from lawyers via email, which feeds directly into the messaging system, allowing them to respond in the way that is most convenient for them.

As lawyers spend a large amount of time working in MyEden, the messaging feature helps to speed up response times. They also find it much more efficient for recapping message history, as it is automatically collated case by case.

Price & Fees = Financial Statement

Our interviewees reported that they were never really sure what they had to pay, as their bill at completion was often much higher than expected.

This made it difficult for them to budget and significantly undermined trust between customers and conveyancing firms, making the process even more stressful.

The financials feature provides a live summary of all costs incurred to date, as well as any upcoming costs. This ensures that clients always know what they need to pay and when, offering full transparency.

Organisation = Documents

Our interviewees reported that it was difficult to organise the information relating to their case, as some documents arrived by post, others by email, and from a variety of different senders. This caused stress, with some people citing that they had lost important information.

They expressed a need for a central repository for documentation. However, the way in which people filed documents varied considerably. To determine the most effective solution at scale, we conducted card sorting exercises and follow-up interviews.

Building Features for the Business

The business stakeholders were focused on generating referrals from clients who were satisfied with the service they had received. The original offer was a £50 Amazon voucher upon the referral’s exchange, yet they were not receiving any referrals.

We conducted another round of research to understand why. We discovered that an Amazon voucher was not compelling enough, and that the most effective way to encourage referrals was, in fact, cash. Since offering cash was not feasible, the next best option was to provide vouchers via a third-party provider called Tillo. This allowed end users to track and collect vouchers and spend them wherever they liked.

Continual Analysis

While UX did not always have new features to work on sprint after sprint, we conducted a range of activities to enhance and improve various flows, which fed into the product roadmap.

We carried out guerrilla testing, usability testing by incentivising customers who had completed their cases, and maintained continual collaboration with Eden employee users.

I also explored the use of AI for sentiment analysis on NPS surveys, lawyer messages, and support tickets.