Frictionless Property Registration

Guided flow that increases completeness and reduces drop-off

Company details omitted for confidentiality. Showcasing design strategy and process only.

Role: Senior Product Designer
Scope: End-to-end
Timeline: 200 days

context

The product is a real estate CRM used across multiple Latin American countries, responsible for managing lead flow and property registration for sales and rentals. Following expansion into Brazil, there was a need to adapt the system to the local market, balancing speed of registration with listing quality, ensuring properties were publishable and performed well on marketplaces, without causing frustration or drop-off among agents.

The property registration flow prioritized speed over completeness, simplifying the amount of information to reduce agent drop-off. Despite this, many listings were incomplete or unqualified, harming operational efficiency and the visibility of properties on marketplaces. This approach caused frustration for agents, increased team rework, and directly impacted the quality of the listing portfolio available to clients.

How can we adapt the property registration flow of a Latin American CRM for the Brazilian market, ensuring listing quality, reduced drop-off, and an intuitive experience for agents?

Hypotheses

Separation of operational registration and listing optimization

Listings can initially exist with minimal information and be optimized later without impacting operations.

Impact: Increase in the proportion of qualified listings and reduction in operational team rework.

Guided experience with progressive steps reduces drop-off

A step-by-step flow, with fields revealed progressively, facilitates engagement and reduces the perception of a long form.

Impact: Lower drop-off rate during property registration.

Quality indicators encourage completeness

Progress scores and indicators help users understand listing status, motivating full completion.

Impact: Increase in the number of listings considered “ready to publish” and improved perception of system reliability.

Prioritization of essential fields increases efficiency

Highlighting critical information first and complementary fields later improves focus, speed, and user experience.

Impact: Reduced average property registration time and higher user satisfaction with the flow.

discovery

Mapping the existing flow

To understand the product and identify friction points, I began discovery by mapping the current property registration flow within the CRM.

  • Documented each step, from initial registration to marketplace publication.

  • Identified critical drop-off points and inconsistencies between stages.

  • This analysis provided clarity on user behavior and the limitations of the existing flow.

INTERNAL TEAMS

Evaluated existing screens and interactions using usability and UX principles.

Identified cognitive load issues, confusing fields, and lack of visual progression that impacted agent engagement.

Served as a foundation to generate design improvement hypotheses grounded in heuristics.

Heuristics Adopted

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Clarity of states and actions

Users must understand Pause vs Deactivate.

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Safe control

Users maintain autonomy with mechanisms to prevent critical mistakes.

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Consistency across the experience

Predictable behavior in all flows and touchpoints.

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System alignment

Interface reflects state machine logic.

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Transparency of consequences

Each action communicates its impact.

PROBLEM REFINEMENT

Lack of unified logic + missing context turned a simple action into a complex decision, directly impacting experience and supply health.

product strategy

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Defined states

Pause (temporary): reversible, ideal for momentary situations.

Deactivation (permanent): removes listing from the platform, requiring a deliberate decision.

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Guiding principles

Transparency: make the outcomes of actions explicit.

Reversibility: allow temporary decisions to be undone.

Guidance: support user decision-making, reducing uncertainty.

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Trade-offs considered

Complexity vs. clarity: two states increase understanding and reduce ambiguity.

Strategic friction in critical actions: confirmations prevent impulsive decisions.

solution

State Structure (Macro Flow)

We defined three main listing states: Active, Paused, and Deactivated. Each state clearly reflects the property’s availability on the platform and has well-defined transitions aligned with the state machine, ensuring that any user action results in predictable and consistent behavior. This structure serves as the foundation for the entire experience, reducing ambiguity and preventing inconsistencies across flows and touchpoints.

Pause vs Deactivate Choice

To simplify critical decisions, we introduced a clear choice between Pause (temporary) and Deactivate (permanent). Each action is presented with explanations of its impact:

  • Pause: ideal for momentary situations, reversible, and does not compromise supply metrics.

  • Deactivate: a permanent action with explicit consequences for the listing’s visibility and availability.

This differentiation not only guides users to make the right choice but also increases safety and predictability, reducing errors and impulsive decisions.

Pause Flow

The pause flow was designed to be fast and reversible, with minimal friction. Users can quickly pause a listing and reactivate it easily when needed. The interface prioritizes simplicity, highlighting the benefits of the action while avoiding cognitive overload, allowing temporary decisions to be made without unnecessary barriers.

Deactivate Flow

The deactivate flow was structured for high-impact decisions, focusing on clarity, context, and supply protection. It includes:

  • Explanations of the consequences of deactivation, ensuring conscious decision-making.

  • Collection of the deactivation reason, enabling future insights into user behavior and product improvement opportunities.

  • Strategic friction through additional confirmations, reducing the likelihood of impulsive actions and reinforcing the importance of the decision.

This approach ensures that even in high-stakes actions, users fully understand the consequences, while the platform maintains a healthy balance between supply, experience, and business metrics.

design decisions

Intentional Friction

 Deactivation is a high-impact action.

The system guides the user based on the selected reason. The guided flow increases predictability of decisions.

Cognitive Load Reduction

This approach helps reduce errors, increase active listing retention, and maintain overall marketplace balance.

UX as a Supply Metrics Lever

Clear grouping → better data quality and more accurate decisions.

Deactivation Reason Structure

Scenarios guide the correct choice → aligns user behavior with product goals.

Pause vs Deactivate Differentiation

validation

card sorting → validated grouping of reasons.

Information architecture

measured task completion and friction.

Pause → easy
Deactivate → intentionally higher friction

Pause & Deactivate flows

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Behavior (leading)

  • Pause vs Deactivate selection rate

  • Flow completion

  • Abandonment

  • Average completion time

  • Decision switching frequency

Metrics & Impact

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System & operations

  • Status-related bugs

  • Flow inconsistencie

  • Support tickets

  • Resolution time

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Decision quality

  • Improper deactivations

  • Reactivations

  • Reason distribution

  • Consistency reason → executed action

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Business (lagging)

  • Active listings

  • Listing retention

  • Pause vs Deactivate ratio

CONCLUSION

  • Clarity reduces errors and support demand.

  • Guidance prevents impulsive permanent decisions.

  • Structure influences behavior.

  • UX can address backend system issues.

  • Guidance: full freedom → predictable experiences aligned with product.

Learnings

NEXT STEPS

  • Complete interface state standardization.

  • Automated Pause/Deactivate recommendations.

  • Notifications for long-paused listings.

  • Evolve reason collection: product insights.

  • Dashboards for continuous metrics monitoring.