RealPage - Leasing, Renewals and eSign

Reframing a Tactical Feature into a Strategic Product System

Role:
Product Design Lead

Team(s):
1 Designer
1 PO
8 Engineers

Timeline:
1 year

Impact:
>$8M in savings • UX adoption surge • Org-wide design principles

Context

In the wake of COVID-19, RealPage faced a critical shift—leasing offices went dark, and renewal paperwork moved to "drop-off only." Digital demand surged, but the experience was slow, fragmented, and overly reliant on DocuSign, with projected costs exceeding $8M annually.

Stepping in as lead product designer across two engineering teams, I reframed what was initially scoped as a simple UI reskin into a strategic overhaul. We addressed legacy system gaps, eliminated redundancy, and built a unified digital leasing experience designed for scale, usability, and long-term value.

This wasn’t just a UI redesign. It was primed for a strategic reset.

The Challenge

What was initially scoped as a minor enhancement quickly revealed deeper issues. Through rapid interviews and lean research, it became clear both renters and leasing agents were struggling.

Renewals and applications were treated as separate flows, duplicating effort and confusing users. Internally, siloed teams and outdated assumptions about in-person workflows made alignment—and progress—difficult in an increasingly remote-first world.

agents and users were expected to have overlapping responsibilities - on forms that scrolled for days

agents and users were expected to have overlapping responsibilities -
on forms that scrolled for days

Strategic Insight and Actions

To support this I put a plan into action that identified deep workflow redundancies and user Instead of retrofitting features, I asked: What if renewals felt like pressing an easy button—not starting over?

Partnering with a user researcher, we ran discovery interviews and usability studies with renters, leasing agents, and property managers. We uncovered repeated inputs, unclear handoffs, and workflow gaps between applications and renewals.

These insights led to clear design patterns and success metrics that reshaped both the product and our definition of a seamless experience.

Matrix of overlapping requirements
Matrix of overlapping requirements

Research from auditing existing flows, legal compliance, and leasing manager interviews culminated in a matrix that exposed overlaps, redundancies and clear opportunities, not only to simplify but assisted in the generation of a larger RealPage's lifetime renter value.

With these findings I was able to advocate for unification of the workflows between applications and renewals into a single, adaptive experience, to capture once, and bring renewals into much more of a review and renew workflow, rather than starting at square one each time.

This both proposed a cultural shift at Realpage from “document completion” to “data-powered decisions” so that we could leverage the reuse of known data and eliminate redundant steps.

I crafted guiding principles to bring the team along on the journey and ensure buy-in.

“Repetition is pain”
If we already know something, don’t ask again. This became a north star for how we approached form autofill, progressive disclosure, and system memory.

“Forms can be fun-ctional”
Forms are product surfaces, not admin tasks. Treat them with care and attention and appropriate cognitive chunking, not administrative overhead.

This informed interaction design patterns used across the portfolio.

These weren’t just slogans. They became decision-making filters for design and product leads across RealPage.

This informed interaction design patterns used across the portfolio.

These weren’t just slogans. They became decision-making filters for design and product leads across RealPage.

Execution

I led the end-to-end experience design, working hand-in-hand with research, engineers, QA, and business across two previously disjointed teams, as well as the skunkworks team put together to replace the eSign experience.

Key contributions:
  • Designed and prototyped core leasing workflows (application → renewal → eSign)

  • Introduced new collaboration rituals: weekly prototyping reviews, and cross-team roadmap alignment

  • Partnered with a dedicated researcher to ensure usability studies were embedded early and iteratively throughout the design process

  • Mentored adjacent designers to apply the new UX principles, extending consistency beyond the project

  • Partnered with engineering leads to audit and simplify decision logic, reducing conditional edge cases in the leasing flow

Outcomes
Business Impact
  • Approx $8M saved in DocuSign contract costs delivered in less than 3 months by replacing a major external dependency with a native RealPage product experience

  • 24% reduction in time to complete a lease renewal from initial reminder

User Impact
  • 31% increase in user satisfaction across leasing and renewal workflows

  • Usability score improvement from 4.1 to 6.2 on RealPage’s internal 7-point scale, measured through post-launch studies

  • Higher user retention and engagement during a critical macro-environment shift

Organizational Impact
  • Design principles were adopted across teams, becoming core to onboarding and design reviews

  • Improved cross-functional alignment led to reduced rework and increased design velocity across product squads

Execution

I led the end-to-end experience design, working hand-in-hand with research, engineers, QA, and business across two previously disjointed teams, as well as the skunkworks team put together to replace the eSign experience.

Key contributions:
  • Designed and prototyped core leasing workflows (application → renewal → eSign)

  • Introduced new collaboration rituals: weekly prototyping reviews, and cross-team roadmap alignment

  • Partnered with a dedicated researcher to ensure usability studies were embedded early and iteratively throughout the design process

  • Mentored adjacent designers to apply the new UX principles, extending consistency beyond the project

  • Partnered with engineering leads to audit and simplify decision logic, reducing conditional edge cases in the leasing flow

Outcomes
Business Impact
  • Approx $8M saved in DocuSign contract costs delivered in less than 3 months by replacing a major external dependency with a native RealPage product experience

  • 24% reduction in time to complete a lease renewal from initial reminder

User Impact
  • 31% increase in user satisfaction across leasing and renewal workflows

  • Usability score improvement from 4.1 to 6.2 on RealPage’s internal 7-point scale, measured through post-launch studies

  • Higher user retention and engagement during a critical macro-environment shift

Organizational Impact
  • Design principles were adopted across teams, becoming core to onboarding and design reviews

  • Improved cross-functional alignment led to reduced rework and increased design velocity across product squads

Execution

I led the end-to-end experience design, working hand-in-hand with research, engineers, QA, and business across two previously disjointed teams, as well as the skunkworks team put together to replace the eSign experience.

Key contributions:
  • Designed and prototyped core leasing workflows (application → renewal → eSign)

  • Introduced new collaboration rituals: weekly prototyping reviews, and cross-team roadmap alignment

  • Partnered with a dedicated researcher to ensure usability studies were embedded early and iteratively throughout the design process

  • Mentored adjacent designers to apply the new UX principles, extending consistency beyond the project

  • Partnered with engineering leads to audit and simplify decision logic, reducing conditional edge cases in the leasing flow

Outcomes
Business Impact
  • Approx $8M saved in DocuSign contract costs delivered in less than 3 months by replacing a major external dependency with a native RealPage product experience

  • 24% reduction in time to complete a lease renewal from initial reminder

User Impact
  • 31% increase in user satisfaction across leasing and renewal workflows

  • Usability score improvement from 4.1 to 6.2 on RealPage’s internal 7-point scale, measured through post-launch studies

  • Higher user retention and engagement during a critical macro-environment shift

Organizational Impact
  • Design principles were adopted across teams, becoming core to onboarding and design reviews

  • Improved cross-functional alignment led to reduced rework and increased design velocity across product squads

Cultural Contribution

Beyond delivering a high-impact product, this work assisted with maturation for how RealPage now approaches their entire suite.

  • Conducted and improved on repeatable design rituals in a remote landscape that elevated design’s influence upstream

  • Evangelized the idea of “product as platform” or building experiences that scale horizontally across use cases

  • Assisted with composition of early iterations in RealPage's Lifetime value storytelling

Reflection

This project started with a budget problem, and a singularly focused workflow, but what we solved was much deeper: a fragmented product system lacking coherence and strategy. By identifying the bigger opportunity and aligning the teams around simplicity, we delivered something far greater than a remote leasing feature.

Reflection

This project started with a budget problem, and a singularly focused workflow, but what we solved was much deeper: a fragmented product system lacking coherence and strategy. By identifying the bigger opportunity and aligning the teams around simplicity, we delivered something far greater than a remote leasing feature.

Strategic leadership means knowing when to question the scope while having the clarity and influence to rebuild it from the ground up.