Reinventing UX
for a key financial calculator

Client: Arbor Realty Trust/ArborCrowd

THE CHALLENGE:
How to make capitalize our most valuable content.

Our website’s most active page defines how to calculate an investment’s internal rate of return (IRR). This is a key, yet quite complex and misunderstood factor in real estate investing; often searched by professionals. Due to our explanation, this page received well over 10x the traffic vs other pages. So how can we capitalize on this?

THE ACTION:
Turn our existing IRR form into a flexible, mobile-friendly widget.

The current form-based calculator was large and unflexible, so I proposed optimizing it into a modern, widget-based format. This allowed the calculator to easily integrate into other pages; adding value to our investment offerings.

The project started with mapping out the workflow of the calculations, followed by flowcharts and UX prototypes. These highlighted the new collapse/reveal options to better optimize screen space; critical for mobile. The final UI was completed, followed by a functioning prototype for testing.

THE RESULTS:
A new, flexible IRR calculator that works anywhere.

The final calculator took up a light 200×100 pixels of screen space, allowing it to easily integrate anywhere online. Clients can now also calculate their own IRR anywhere within the investment process, seeing instant projected results without clicking away. The expandability allowed greater detail when needed without sacrificing usability.

My roles in the project:
Strategy/concept, UX, UI Design