Dual Methodology Dashboard

Overview

Regulators in the UK announced that Discounted Cash‑Flow (DCF) will become best practice for commercial‑property valuations. However, many appraisers in the UK were more comfortable using the Traditional Valuation (TradVal) methodology, and when they were asked to also provide reports using DCF, ARGUS Enterprise forced users to choose one method per file. Our EMEA advisory team and UK users, needed a single report that compares DCF and TradVal, side‑by‑side.

Context

RICS stands for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a professional body that provides qualifications, maintains ethical standards, and offers guidance across various real estate valuation, construction, and land surveying. The Red Book is RICS's flagship publication, it contains the mandatory global standards, guidance, and best practices for property valuation.

Design Challenge

How might we enable analysts to compare DCF and TradVal results side-by-side, with consistent formatting, export-ready metrics, and software familiarity, while navigating legacy application limitation.

Discovery

I began my discovery by delving into ARGUS Enterprise through product documentation and videos. This approach allowed me to map out key user flows effectively and get a better sense of the need.
I also explored the CRE ecosystem, and the key differences between Traditional Valuation and Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), documenting these insights on Figma.

ARGUS Enterprise stats

Active users

100,000+

Globally

Taught at

200

Universities/Colleges

Trusted by

Leading financial institutions and REITs

Definition

To further understand the problem space, I had meetings with internal valuation advisors, analyst, and tested out preliminary designs with client panels and product managers.

Key insights:

Appraisers from EMEA are not comfortable with DCF modelling and preferred to work using TradVal methodology
ARGUS Enterprise lacked the ability to dual-run models, requiring double work (two separate files with similar inputs)
Clients want transparency and justification for outputs

Objective:
Provide a dual-method reporting tool that would use the same inputs, along with a few new ones, for the calculations required.

Ideation

Concept ⚡️

After talking to subject matter experts and getting a list of the most important KPIs,
I designed the first concept using our design system, Fusion. It was a dashboard where users could compare results side by side, and interact with each of the cards, highlighting similar KPIs. The UI would also allow users to dig deeper into specific reports, understand calculations through tooltips and be able to export PDFs to share with other team members.

This concept brought the product team closer to finalizing what KPIs we wanted to highlight, and what we should consider in our design solution.

Design

Pivot 🔄

Following stakeholder review, the team decided to release this feature in the next release of ARGUS Enterprise, instead of waiting for a full platform migration.

Key reasons:

Cost efficiency: Minimal engineering investment to repurpose existing AE data structures
Reach: Broader user base on AE would benefit immediately
Regulatory pressure: Quick delivery was critical for compliance and client trust

To translate the concepts from the first dashboard to be AE compatible, I designed a small subset of components (small design system), with AE's look and feel.
Once the prototype was ready, I met with internal appraisers and the product manager to validate field-level logic and data hierarchy.

Hand-off

Hand-off involved:

Design documentation
Figma prototypes and annotations
Working closely with engineers building the dashboard, along with implementing assets like the splash screen and new icons
Document how the report would render in a PDF
Working with the Marketing and Legal team to finalize the splash screen design and legal jargon

Before

After

Evaluation

This project demonstrated that UX design goes far beyond visuals, it plays a strategic role in shaping product decisions, adapting to constraints, and delivering user and business value over pixel perfect UI.

I successfully:

Navigated between platform modernization and legacy pragmatism
Brought clarity to complex valuation models through thoughtful UI
Advocated for long-term design vision while delivering immediate impact

Early reviews from internal appraisers and client advisors were positive:

Users found the side-by-side structure intuitive and cut down time-to-model in half
Feedback from clients confirmed that KPIs and differences were clearly captured
The updated visuals and splash screen sparked interest in the platform among AE users

This work solved a key user pain point, while laying the foundation for future integration into the Altus Intelligence Platform, acting as both a tactical solution and a strategic bridge between old and new.