Project Summary
CONTEXT
This capstone project was part of the Master’s in Human-Computer Interaction and Design program at the University of California, Irvine. Our five-person team partnered with Cotality’s product team to explore opportunities for improving Realist, their property data platform used by real estate professionals.
The Problem
Cotality initially framed the challenge as: agents want premium reports, but Realist’s outdated interface makes them difficult to find and purchase. Through interviews, however, we uncovered a different reality: agents weren’t eager to buy reports at all. Instead, they preferred doing the extra legwork to gather data themselves. What they truly needed was a faster way to access the critical property details and the ability to package that information into a polished, client-ready report. This led us to reframe the problem: When each property contains unique and variable data, how can we surface the most relevant insights quickly so real estate professionals can confidently advise their clients and present information in a professional, trustworthy way?
Our SOLUTION
Data Highlights — An AI-powered section surfacing critical data and red flags upfront, with natural language summaries and transparent sourcing. Premium reports are suggested in context, making them feel supportive rather than pushy.
Visual Report Builder — A redesigned export flow where agents can easily create attractive, branded reports for clients.
Navigation Redesign — Sidebar categories make exploring core and premium reports faster and more intuitive.
Custom Layout – A redesign of the custom layout models with clear controls for hiding/showing sections and reordering them. (Our ultimate suggestion for this was to remove it all together.)
Quick Wins–Small but significant changes across the UI to remove daily frustrations and boost usability.
My Role
As Project Lead, I guided the team’s critical decisions and direction, kept the project on scope and on time, and ensured our work aligned with both user and business goals. I encouraged team members to set and achieve their own learning goals while serving as a sounding board for problem-solving and validation.
Research Contributions
Developed the research plan
Led the heuristic evaluation
Led the competitive analysis
Supported other research activities
Solution Contributions
Data Highlights
Custom Layout
The Impact
Our work delivered results on multiple levels. For users, the redesigned Property Details page reduced friction, surfaced critical data faster, and provided new transparency features that built trust in AI-driven insights. For the business, the Data Highlights feature unlocked a clear path to revenue growth through a tiered access model and contextual premium report recommendations. And at the organizational level, our research and concepts directly informed a proposal for up to $1.6M in funding, helping unify stakeholder vision and strengthening CEO-level presentations that secured momentum for Realist’s future.
We started with two assumptions
Our team of five partnered with Cotality (formerly CoreLogic), a data powerhouse in the property technology space, to reimagine Realist—a flagship product generating $21M annually by surfacing property data for real estate professionals. The challenge seemed straightforward: agents want premium reports, but Realist’s outdated interface makes them hard to find and buy.
As Project Lead, I guided our research strategy and design vision, ensuring our work connected to both user needs and business goals. I also owned key contributions in research and solution design, while fostering an environment where each teammate could grow in areas they cared about. Very quickly, however, our research began to reveal that the problem wasn’t what it first appeared to be—setting the stage for us to rethink those original assumptions.
BUT THEY reflected only the lens of the business, so we widened our view.
To validate them, I developed a research plan that ensured we examined all three lenses at play: the users, the product itself, and the business. This framework helped me guide the team in keeping our research both actionable for stakeholders and expansive enough to show where Realist fits in the broader market. From there, we were able to define the real problem to tackle in the design phase.
LENS: THE USERS
we learned agents don’t trust THAT premium reports provide enough value to justify the cost
Through interviews with agents and brokers, we mapped their workflow across four phases and discovered that Realist played only a small role as a final stop in the research process to double-check details. Agents were willing to put in extra effort elsewhere to gather the same information for free, because they doubted that a paid report would provide anything more useful or reliable.
LENS: THE APP
but The Assumption about Realist as outdated and difficult Holds true
From our interviews with real estate professionals and product trainers, we found that users primarily relied on Realist for three purposes:
Targeting prospects: narrowing their marketing scope to homes likely to sell.
Final research checks: spotting red flags that might derail a sale—often requiring further digging through desk research or even trips to the tax office.
Client-ready reports: producing printable, brandable reports that looked polished enough to share with clients.
LENS: THE Business
And Realist faces rising threats in an increasingly oversaturated Market.
Our competitive analysis revealed the bigger risk: Realist wasn’t just missing out on report sales, it risked losing relevance entirely. Newer platforms offered sleeker workflows and modern client communication tools, putting pressure on Cotality to ensure Realist remained the go-to property research tool.
realist could become the premier, one-stop-shop for property data if cotality aligns business goals with user needs.
The key is integrating the platform seamlessly into agents’ workflows: providing comprehensive data is not enough—it must be surfaced at the right moment, packaged into client-ready reports, and made actionable. By designing Realist to work for professionals rather than forcing them to work around it, we can create a tool that feels natural, logical, and indispensable.
Solutions I Led
Data Highlights
An AI-powered section surfacing critical data and red flags upfront, with natural language summaries and transparent sourcing. Premium reports are suggested in context, making them feel supportive rather than pushy.
Data Highlights
An AI-powered section surfacing critical data and red flags upfront, with natural language summaries and transparent sourcing. Premium reports are suggested in context, making them feel supportive rather than pushy.
Solutions Led by Team Members
VISUAL REPORT BUILDER
A redesigned export flow where agents can easily create attractive, branded reports for clients.
Navigation redesign
Sidebar categories that make exploring both core and premium reports faster and more intuitive.
QUICK WINS
Small but significant changes across the UI to remove daily frustrations and boost usability.
SOLUTION 1
Data Highlights: Quickly surfaces red flags and key property details
Placed at the top of the property details page, this section brings essential information front and center, reducing time spent scanning. Users can explore specific data via tabs, access original sources, or opt for a premium report, all without breaking their workflow.
1
AI Overview: key property insights in plain language
This section uses SQL and generative AI to surface the most relevant information and present it in natural language, letting agents grasp critical details quickly without digging through raw data.
HOW IT WORKS
SQL and large language models review and analyze available property data against benchmarks to identify potential red flags. These insights are summarized in natural language, while all specific data points are highlighted and clickable—showing what they mean, how calculations are made, and their original sources.
-Participant 2
2
Data tabs: allow for contextual premium report recommendations
Data Tabs let real estate professionals drill down into specific types of property data, providing more detailed overviews and highlights tailored to their needs. They also enable premium report suggestions, but only when the property data meets specific criteria. Each recommendation includes a clear rationale, so users understand why it’s relevant which helps them feel supported and confident in their workflow rather than pressured to make a purchase.
HOW IT WORKS
SQL and large language models review and analyze available property data against benchmarks to identify potential red flags. These insights are summarized in natural language, while all specific data points are highlighted and clickable—showing what they mean, how calculations are made, and their original sources.
This will make my job easier, because this is already giving me the key points for my pitch, that's great to a potential client.
-Participant 2
