Take Action: The Notification Center
Why rely solely on email as the main communication channel with users? Given the high engagement levels within the platform and the volume of potential notifications, we needed a more effective way to communicate with users—driving interaction and product adoption beyond traditional email campaigns.
Company
propiedades.com
Date
November 2023
Role
Lead Product Designer
Team
PMs, Dev
Platform
App, Web
The Problem
Pcom had a low email open rate, yet this was the only channel used to share critical information, including:
Marketing campaigns
Listing updates
Promotional offers for publishing plans
To increase engagement and ensure users received relevant updates, we needed to build a real-time notification center integrated within the platform.
Architecture & Strategy
To define a scalable notification system, we conducted:
Benchmark analysis of direct and indirect competitors to extract best practices from both traditional and modern real estate platforms.
User data analysis to identify the most consumed information within Pcom, ensuring content prioritization was user-driven.
Card-sorting sessions with Mexican customers to determine optimal placement and structure for notifications, balancing familiarity with innovation.
These insights led to an architecture designed for long-term scalability, ensuring that notifications would enhance the user experience rather than overwhelm it.
Discovery & Framework
Improve user communication channels by leveraging the high interaction rates within the product itself. Instead of relying on external emails, we aimed to establish Pcom’s platform as the primary real-time notification hub.
We integrated ongoing user research on notification expectations within real estate products, allowing us to refine the communication strategy and ensure seamless implementation.
What to Communicate and How?
With notifications, the challenge isn’t just what to communicate, but how. We focused on the two core user segments:
Property seekers – Timely alerts about listings, price changes, and saved searches.
Property publishers – Updates on listing performance, buyer interest, and promotional opportunities.
Tailored User Experiences
Given Pcom’s high-traffic nature, implementation had to account for different user journeys:
Many recurring users don’t log in frequently, making data collection critical for retention strategies.
New features can serve as incentives for users to log in and unlock exclusive functionalities.
Building for Scalability
We approached the notification center as an MVP, ensuring early feedback collection and iterative improvements. By documenting decisions and tracking feature behavior, we laid the groundwork for future expansion.
Hyper-Personalization
Whether transactional or marketing-related, users needed full control over what notifications they received and through which channels. Personalization was at the core of our approach, allowing users to tailor their experience according to their preferences.
Key Deliverables
Onboarding for Seamless Adoption
Frequent changes to a platform can overwhelm users, so we designed an onboarding experience that introduced the notification center in a clear and engaging way. This ensured a smooth adoption curve and minimized user friction.
Standardization for Future Growth
The MVP launched with six notification types, covering key user needs:
New interested buyers
Expiring listings
Draft properties
Publishing incentives
New features
New messages
This standardized structure provided a foundation for expanding notifications over time.
User-Controlled Notification Center
With a single click, users could fully customize their notification preferences, ensuring a tailored experience that respected their needs and avoided unnecessary disruptions.
UI that Guides the Experience
We designed intuitive components that made consuming notifications effortless. Each notification type adhered to standardized UI patterns, ensuring clarity, usability, and a seamless user experience.