Accelerating first-time listing conversion
Apartments.com, Rental Tools
Design Lead
The problem
85% of first-time independent owners on Apartments.com had one goal: get a listing live, fast. The existing Create Listing flow didn't serve that. It surfaced every required and optional field at once, front-loading decisions at the exact moment users needed momentum.
The signal was hard to ignore: "listing" was the most frequent word in NPS detractor comments. This wasn't a minor friction point. It was the primary drop-off in a conversion funnel tied directly to marketplace revenue.
My role
Design lead on a cross-functional team with PM, engineering, and sales. I owned the end-to-end UX, from reframing the problem through cross-functional alignment and launch.
The reframe
The existing flow asked: what information do we need? I reframed it as: what's the minimum needed to go live?
That shift led to a two-phase model: a streamlined Lite flow for first-time creation and a richer Edit flow for post-publish enrichment.
What changed
Three steps, not a form marathon.
I stripped all optional fields from the initial flow (except description and applications enablement) and reduced the sequence to three screens. Each screen's vertical height was shortened for mobile, designed for thumb-friendly progression from start to publish. The mental model we targeted: as easy as posting on Facebook Marketplace.
Progressive disclosure, not hidden fields.
Optional details weren't buried, they were reintroduced in the Edit flow, framed as performance upgrades tied to discoverability and lead volume. This turned enrichment from a barrier into a growth lever, giving users a reason to return on their own terms.
CTA logic tied to user stage.
For a first property, the primary action after setup is "Create a listing." For subsequent properties, secondary leasing and management CTAs are surfaced. This kept the flow intentional at every stage.
Results
An A/B test ran throughout April via Optimizely, comparing the original flow against the new Lite design. The new flow outperformed on every metric and became the default experience for all users on May 1.
Metric
Before
Change
Conversion rate
55.7%
+8.73%
Time to complete
11 min 18s
-34.2%
Premium purchases
78
+25.6%
Complete listings
3,663
+6.69%
What it unlocks
The Lite/Edit split isn't just simplification, it's a model for how Rental Tools onboards new owners going forward. Any future feature that could overwhelm a first-time user at creation can now be introduced in the Edit flow instead, after the owner has already gone live.
Accelerating first-time listing conversion
Apartments.com, Rental Tools
Design Lead
The problem
85% of first-time independent owners on Apartments.com had one goal: get a listing live, fast. The existing Create Listing flow didn't serve that. It surfaced every required and optional field at once, front-loading decisions at the exact moment users needed momentum.
The signal was hard to ignore: "listing" was the most frequent word in NPS detractor comments. This wasn't a minor friction point. It was the primary drop-off in a conversion funnel tied directly to marketplace revenue.
My role
Design lead on a cross-functional team with PM, engineering, and sales. I owned the end-to-end UX, from reframing the problem through cross-functional alignment and launch.
The reframe
The existing flow asked: what information do we need? I reframed it as: what's the minimum needed to go live?
That shift led to a two-phase model: a streamlined Lite flow for first-time creation and a richer Edit flow for post-publish enrichment.
What changed
Three steps, not a form marathon.
I stripped all optional fields from the initial flow (except description and applications enablement) and reduced the sequence to three screens. Each screen's vertical height was shortened for mobile, designed for thumb-friendly progression from start to publish. The mental model we targeted: as easy as posting on Facebook Marketplace.
Progressive disclosure, not hidden fields.
Optional details weren't buried, they were reintroduced in the Edit flow, framed as performance upgrades tied to discoverability and lead volume. This turned enrichment from a barrier into a growth lever, giving users a reason to return on their own terms.
CTA logic tied to user stage.
For a first property, the primary action after setup is "Create a listing." For subsequent properties, secondary leasing and management CTAs are surfaced. This kept the flow intentional at every stage.
Results
An A/B test ran throughout April via Optimizely, comparing the original flow against the new Lite design. The new flow outperformed on every metric and became the default experience for all users on May 1.
Metric
Before
After
Change
Conversion rate
55.7%
60.5%
+8.73%
Time to complete
11 min 18s
7 min 26s
-34.2%
Premium purchases
78
98
+25.6%
Complete listings
3,663
3,908
+6.69%
What it unlocks
The Lite/Edit split isn't just simplication, it's a model for how Rental Tools onboards new owners going forward. Any future feature that could overwhelm a first-time user at creation can now be introduced in the Edit flow instead, after the owner has already gone live.
Accelerating first-time listing conversion
Apartments.com, Rental Tools
Design Lead
The problem
85% of first-time independent owners on Apartments.com had one goal: get a listing live, fast. The existing Create Listing flow didn't serve that. It surfaced every required and optional field at once, front-loading decisions at the exact moment users needed momentum.
The signal was hard to ignore: "listing" was the most frequent word in NPS detractor comments. This wasn't a minor friction point. It was the primary drop-off in a conversion funnel tied directly to marketplace revenue.
My role
Design lead on a cross-functional team with PM, engineering, and sales. I owned the end-to-end UX, from reframing the problem through cross-functional alignment and launch.
The reframe
The existing flow asked: what information do we need? I reframed it as: what's the minimum needed to go live?
That shift led to a two-phase model: a streamlined Lite flow for first-time creation and a richer Edit flow for post-publish enrichment.
What changed
Three steps, not a form marathon.
I stripped all optional fields from the initial flow (except description and applications enablement) and reduced the sequence to three screens. Each screen's vertical height was shortened for mobile, designed for thumb-friendly progression from start to publish. The mental model we targeted: as easy as posting on Facebook Marketplace.
Progressive disclosure, not hidden fields.
Optional details weren't buried, they were reintroduced in the Edit flow, framed as performance upgrades tied to discoverability and lead volume. This turned enrichment from a barrier into a growth lever, giving users a reason to return on their own terms.
CTA logic tied to user stage.
For a first property, the primary action after setup is "Create a listing." For subsequent properties, secondary leasing and management CTAs are surfaced. This kept the flow intentional at every stage.
Results
An A/B test ran throughout April via Optimizely, comparing the original flow against the new Lite design. The new flow outperformed on every metric and became the default experience for all users on May 1.
Metric
Before
After
Change
Conversion rate
55.7%
60.5%
+8.73%
Time to complete
11 min 18s
7 min 26s
-34.2%
Premium purchases
78
98
+25.6%
Complete listings
3,663
3,908
+6.69%
What it unlocks
The Lite/Edit split isn't just simplication, it's a model for how Rental Tools onboards new owners going forward. Any future feature that could overwhelm a first-time user at creation can now be introduced in the Edit flow instead, after the owner has already gone live.