A National Commercial Real Estate Company
Decades of leasing logic lived only in employees’ heads. Think’s research and design brought it into view, and established a system to build upon.- Research & Product Strategy
- Product Design & Build
- Design Systems & AI Enablement
Overview
Some details in this case study, including the client’s name, have been withheld. Discretion is part of how we earn trust. We’d protect your organization the same way. Think partnered with a national commercial real estate company to reimagine how prospective tenants find and lease commercial space, from national retailers to first-time owners renting their very first storefront. The existing platform was aging out of support, and leadership needed something built to handle real leasing complexity. What we found went deeper than the initial problem we thought we were solving. Years of undocumented business logic lived only in the heads of the people who ran the business every day. Our research and design work gave that logic a coherent structure for the first time. That structure had to show up where a first-time owner or a national retailer could actually use it. Store logos, property boundaries, and a search built around dozens of filters all had to work together on a map, and work fast. Think helped create a visual language and search tool powerful enough to handle an enormous, shifting data set of logos and properties.
About This Client
A national commercial real estate company that owns and operates hundreds of retail properties across the country, connecting national retailers and first-time small business owners alike with space to lease.
Complex business logic, built up over decades, had never lived in one coherent system. We created one flexible enough to hold an enormous, shifting set of listings, logos, and property boundaries.
Results
- Problem
Determining if a space was actually available to lease depended on rules that lived only in employees’ heads, undocumented anywhere in the business.
SolutionThink’s research surfaced that logic and turned it into a single source of truth the client’s team could use to build the new platform.
- Problem
The client’s own analysis of a strong internal survey had led them to some inaccurate conclusions.
SolutionWe used that raw data to shape our research and give their team accurate findings from the start.
- Problem
First-time small business owners had no clear way to search for space, and no guidance for a leasing process they’d never navigated before.
SolutionWe designed a search experience shaped by real filters and plain guidance, made to be intuitive for first-time owners as well as experienced national retailers.
- Problem
The same visual system had to work whether someone was searching for one small storefront or managing hundreds of properties.
SolutionWe shaped a design system flexible enough to serve both without compromising either experience.