Real estate is an industry steeped in tradition, but we’ve always believed it deserves a bit of a shake-up. In line with our future-focused ethos, digital design, software engineering, machine learning and data science have always fitted in neatly with our conventional property services, and in fact are becoming a central objective as we steer the company forward.
Our design and user experience (UX) is led by our Head of Design, Jonny Brian. After working as a designer at multiple digital agencies and even co-founding his own studio, Jonny came to us from Commonwealth Bank, where he was Design Manager of the Enterprise UX team. There, he learned about platform architecture, responsive design and design systems, and honed his expertise in design leadership. Jonny’s attributes and skills have allowed him to thrive in his role at Milk Chocolate and expose the untapped potential of fusing real estate and design.
“Often, people simply don’t understand how things work,” he says. “The process of buying, renovating and renting property is complex, unfamiliar and inefficient. We can improve tools and create better experiences by providing more intuitive software and transparency, and guide users through unfamiliar or complex tasks. Through design, we can also untangle complex jargon and use simple language so that people have a clearer understanding of what things mean.”
Jonny is currently leading the design and development of a Milk Chocolate platform that combines internal admin software for our team and external software that will enrich our clients’ user experience. As well, he’s establishing our brand identity and digital design system to help us fortify our online presence. Jonny sees the design aspect of these tools not as a slick and superfluous addition, but as a critical part of Milk Chocolate’s – and, indeed, any business’s – success.
“In a business context, the work designers do should ultimately lead to an increase in revenue or a decrease in costs. We can influence an increase in revenue by attracting more customers, or increase customer value by increasing price, frequency of use, or customer retention. We can decrease costs by discovering ways to streamline business rules, workflows and processes, and reducing overheads by creating efficiencies for staff through automation and software,” says Jonny.
“Businesses shouldn’t make assumptions about what people really want and how people think and feel. Human-centred design methods can gain insights to better understand people's needs by using UX research tools. We can identify problems that cause errors or features that don’t meet the user’s needs early and make adjustments long before it goes into production. Unpicking or changing a product after it's built can be an extremely expensive and slow process.”
There’s plenty of evidence to support the value of design. A US investment tool known as the Design Value Index has shown that design-led companies annually outperform their peers in the S&P Index by an astounding 228 percent. McKinsey data from 2018 revealed that companies that integrate design thinking have 32 percent higher revenue and 56 percent higher returns than businesses that don’t. Looking internally, a 2015 report by the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program found that 71 percent of companies believe good design has improved their working culture.
As digital becomes the standard mode of delivery for the majority of businesses, the importance of design is difficult to ignore; without good design principles underpinning its products and tools, it’s easy for a business to fall behind. With this in mind, we look forward to Jonny’s guidance and expertise allowing us to forge ahead.
We’re in the process of hiring experienced software engineers to help us take our tech to the next level. If you’d like to learn more about the roles we have available, please contact Jonny at jonny@milkchoc.com.au.
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