8 days to onboard a client. We asked: what if it took none?
onboarding ux
product design
workshops
Reduced onboarding from 8 days to 1 by redesigning the end-to-end onboarding experience for new real estate agencies on Property Finder — UAE's leading property portal.
Timeline
Oct 2025 - Mar 2026
Industry
Real Estate
my role
Sr. Product Designer
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we create digital-first, self-serve onboarding experience in PF Expert, designed to guide new clients through operational setup and learning, while reducing dependency on human-led onboarding?
When a platform scales faster than processes
As the Emerald segment grew across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and the Northern Emirates, so did the burden. CSPs were each managing around 200 accounts. Manual onboarding was taking up to 8 days per client. And the clients who slipped through the cracks published bad listings, burned credits, failed permit validation, and churned.
Team and Timeline
product manager
Sabine darkoub
ux designer
Olena Horbachenko
Head of Design
Nina Najla Zahr
Service Designer
Hiba Rageh
Engineering Manager
Sergey Skutin
Backend
Taranveer Singh
User Researcher
Zarah Shaheen
Frontend
Ilyas Assainov
Discovery & Stakeholder Research
Internal interviews with CSPs, Business Consultants, and new business teams. First pain point mapping.
User Research & Co-creation Workshop
8+ sessions with recently onboarded Emerald agencies. In-person workshop (Nov 6) with 20+ cross-functional stakeholders.
Ideation, Prioritisation & Low-Fidelity Flows
Impact vs. effort scoring, How Might We statements, prototyping key flows.
Design Validation Walkthroughs
Internal journey walkthrough sessions with BCs and CSPs. Iteration based on critical feedback.
Target Launch — PF Expert Onboarding 2.0
Digital-first, self-serve onboarding goes live across all UAE regions.
Users rush to listing publishing
8+ sessions with new Emerald agencies, plus CSP and consultant interviews — one insight, independently: agencies had everything (Academy, trainings, legal guides) but it felt too overwhelming, so they skipped it. Then they'd hit an unknown permit requirement on listing one and call their CSP. Information that doesn't arrive at the right moment, in the right order, won't get acted on.
8 out of 10 clients couldn't go live without asking for help
The Trakheesi permit was something most clients had never heard of before signing up. They didn't know what type to apply for, what documents to prepare.
They spend days trying to list, but they can't even go live without a broker card
Even digital-first, they still would want a human option
Even tech-comfortable clients wanted a person on standby when things got confusing. Self-serve worked — but only with a visible safety net.
"There should be someone who can visit or support in person when needed."
Long training sessions in PF Academy stays untouched
PF Academy had everything, but felt like a library with no reading list. Clients didn't know where to start, so they didn't. The fix wasn't more content — it was a clearer path into it.
"They never open the academy - it's too much work"
Preventing internal back-and-forth with one alignment session
We ran 8+ sessions with recently onboarded Emerald agencies — fresh enough to remember the friction, settled enough to have hit it. Alongside that, deep-dive interviews with CSPs and Business Consultants surfaced the same insight independently: the Trakheesi permit was the single biggest blocker. The data from the research was used as an input for workshop for 20+ people: PMs, researchers, Designers, Business Consultants, CSPs, and Inside Sales.
Imagine gathering 20+ professional to brainstorm
Onboarding 2.0 opens on a persistent Getting Started dashboard — the default landing page until everything's done. Two tracks: Operational Setup (go live) and Learning & Product Tours (long-term success). Every step opens the real PF Expert page plus a contextual WalkMe tour. Nothing in isolation — each step ties to a real action.
The data from the research was used as an input for workshop for 20+ people: PMs, researchers, Designers, Business Consultants, CSPs, and Inside Sales. One idea echoed across every team, every table, every sketch: guidance needs to be bite-sized, step-by-step, and simple. Not a course. Not a manual. A nudge at the right moment.
Our first attempt didn't work because we tried to teach clients everything at once
January surfaced a tension: internal teams wanted mandatory, locked-step training. The research showed forced completion just created negative sentiment and higher abandonment. We resolved it by separating hard prerequisites from soft guidance. If a client does not have their Trakheesi/BRN, they literally cannot list — so those trigger mandatory academy courses. Everything else is contextual, embedded, and optional. WalkMe tours replaced formal training for most operational tasks. Short 30 to 60 second in-product videos replaced the academy for things like watermarks, credit cycles, listing creation, and profile setup. The academy became a place for advanced learning — not a gate.
We decided to go with Getting Started dashboard that appears on first login
Three decisions. Persistent dashboard, not a wizard — onboarding isn't a moment, it's the first month, so it retires at day 31. Two tracks, because "go live" and "long-term success" are different jobs; blending them made the old flow overwhelming. Every step tied to a real action — so information lands when it's needed.
On permits specifically. In the old onboarding there was nothing digital that told a client permits even mattered. A client would create a listing, hit the Trakheesi field, ask the CSP what is that, get a PDF back, and try to figure it out — with the CSP chasing. So we did two things: surface permits on the Getting Started dashboard from the very first login, where clients can learn what they need and how to get it; and inside listing creation, highlight the Trakheesi field directly with exactly what to do and where.
On the tooltips. The in-product tooltips along the listing flow I built in WalkMe. They imitate the hand-holding clients used to get from a CSP — so they don't get stuck or frustrated when they suddenly realise something's missing.
On listing quality. To publish and get leads, a client fills a long form — property details, amenities, location. We worked with the PM to pull real benchmark data showing what a complete listing gets versus an incomplete one, in visibility and leads, so the effort connects to an outcome the client can see.
Few takeaways
On a fast-paced market like Dubai, clarity and speed always wins
A strong cut-off beats indecision. Speed comes from a clear decision and rapid movement — zero delay between idea and build. No "maybe": develop it now, park it as a commitment, or discard it.
Early alignment is what prevents things going south + gives us a creative freedom
Everything is possible if you have a clear rationale as to why whatever you want to do makes sense for the business. Feedback is a gift and the earlier we have it, the better it is.
Results
PF Expert Platform