BDX Envision Real Estate Tool
THE PROBLEM
Picture – or envision – buying a brand new home, with every step of the way having the builder customize it. BDX’s envision real estate tool helps home buyers feel an emotional attachment by visualizing their new home, with the intervention of BDX’s, the home buyer is then confident enough to invest in a new home built to their specific desires.
Buying a home is a big part of the American dream. More people have moved to an online buying experience than ever in history. New home buyers want their homes to reflect their own design aesthetic. And also include all the bells and whistles of a brand-new home. Rocksauce designed the Envision tool to make it possible for BDX to allow home builders to show online home buyers what their finished homes will look like with the buyer’s own design and decorating choices.
THE CHALLENGE
When BDX Envision Real Estate (Builder Digital Experience came to us, the challenge was to update their online interface for home builders. Sothe home buyer could be completely involved in making selections on home features. BDX mission is to “help builders sell more new homes, at higher margins, while improving builder profitability.” BDX needed to help home builders guide home buyers. They guide through the design process, so they felt at ease purchasing from the home builders. And it does. Here’s how Rocksauce Studios and BDX collaborated to make it happen.
The truth is, before we created Envision with BDX, home builders didn’t have a straightforward, online design tool. Because of no tool to show clients all the design choices they had affected the number of new homes. Envision changed all that.
BACKGROUND
Rocksauce needed to build this tool for builders to use to attract new home buyers and showcase the potential of the new homes. The original BDX website had become outdated, and they came to Rocksauce for a whole new build. All this was geared toward the trend of online shopping for new homes. Rocksauce and BDX are both part of a larger entity, Builder Homesite, that makes tools for people who are selling homes display and sell them better. Even pre-pandemic, more home buyers were spending more time shopping online, so updating this aspect of the new BDX tool, Envision, was crucial.
Customizing the tool to help new home buyers virtually walk through the new homes was key to the user experience and core to the website update. We spoke to Rocksauce GM and Co-Founder Peter Yoder and Kati Presley. Who worked as Head of UX + Product Owner on the Envision project for Rocksauce. He is now the Product Manager of BDX Envision real estate. He his helping to discover some of the design challenges and solutions they made as a collaborative team with BDX.
Peter: “We had to address someone being able to easily pick, build out, their visualization for their new home build. Originally this was a companion piece, but now it’s front and center.
Kati: “They needed to get some innovative…new ideas and get out of the kind of silo of the industry” and expand.
THE SOLUTION OF BDX ENVISION REAL ESTATE
The Rocksauce design team reviewed the user interface and decided which weaknesses to shore up and looked for inspiration on what aspects and functionality we wanted to include in the new build. BDX and Rocksauce were deeply involved in the onboarding process, discussing what was needed and how the prototype should look. We did user testing of the prototype and got feedback, then made some updates and got further feedback.
The comparison tool and the mood board are two of the most exciting things for the client and their end users, as they really haven’t been seen in the market before. Envision was initially released in August 2021, and we have gotten excellent response from BDX, their builders and their builders’ clients, the homebuyers.
In fact, here are some customer satisfaction quotes from the BDX website:
- “Envision has not only streamlined our design center selection process but has turned our happy customers into raving fans!”–Lesley McCarthy, Corporate VP, Interior Design, John Wieland Homes
- “We pay more for nails in a house than we do for Envision! This is a no-brainer decision for any builder wanting to stay competitive and impact their bottom line”–Dennis Webb, VP, Operations, Fulton Homes.
Rocksauce is proud to collaborate with BDX on Envision! We were able to answer the needs of current home buyers in a way that hasn’t been seen before. We expect home builders to get more conversions, as home buyers are able to envision themselves in their new homes.
