On Redfin, two buyers can link their accounts to comment on homes together with a feature called Shared Search. We also had a separate "Private Notes" feature built with old tech that had to be upgraded to React to meet engineering goals. We took this opportunity to merge these two concepts together.
Primary goal: Pay down the tech debt of these two similar features
Secondary goal: Take a step toward a messaging-type experience for co-buyers.
Individual comment threads are linked to a property, and as such commenting takes place most-often on the home details page. Where previously the entry point was very hidden below the fold and behind a click, a single buyer can now add a note in a more reasonable place, grouped with other actions. Comments can be a single thought, or a long back and forth conversation. To account for this we've bundled the thread into a modal experience.
Single buyer comments (1 user)
A single buyer can leave comments for themselves. When they come back to a property, a snippet of their comment will be shown. From the comment widget a buyer can add their co-buyer to share their comments.
Sharing your comments with your co-buyer
If a single buyer has left any comments before adding a co-buyer, we will make sure they know that all of their previous comments will now be shared with said co-buyer. For 99% of cases this is what buyers want, but we noticed in 1% of cases there were sensitive comments that would be unthinkable to share without permission.
A single buyer can add their co-buyer from the commenting sheet.
Accepting an invite
An invited co-buyer will get an invitation in their inbox describing all the facets of sharing with a co-buyer. Comments are one of many things that can be shared with a co-buyer. We include an extra note for users who have left comments reminding them their comments will now be shared.
Co-buyer Empty State
Challenges
When project starts with a goal around paying down tech debt many sacrifices get made. One of the biggest constraints of the project was porting the functionality and fundamentals of the features 100%. From my previous user tests I knew that the term "comment" lead users to believe their text would be shared publicly. Unfortunately we weren't able to address that user confusion as a part of this initial project.