Marc Palmer

The more I have to use these online property sites (for purchase or rental) the more it drives me nuts. The people behind these sites obviously lack enthusiasm when it comes to usability or user-oriented design. Have they thought that many people may be using their site on a daily basis for six months or more?
Here’s some free web application and usability tips for any of the people working on those sites if they are listening:

1. AUTOMATICALLY remember the properties people have clicked on. This is far more useful than any “add to basket” feature, especially when the page titles are rarely informative so browser bookmarking and history are usually useless. This is trivial to do, with a link for “Recently viewed properties”.
2. AUTOMATICALLY remember the searches people have used. When they return to the site, offer to let them run the same searches again – separately or as one big result list.
3. Following on from (2), automatically only show new results that the user has not seen in a search result before – with an option to view all that would apply in a given date period (i.e. updated in last 7 days) for the cases where people have given up half way through the list. Alternatively have a “Mark these properties as seen” option at the bottom of each page of search results.
4. Don’t allow agents to post properties that have no data other than price and area and number of bedrooms. You have a quality of service to maintain to your end users, and as soon as they have to reach for the phone to get useful property details, your service has failed the user and most likely the agent. I’m sure most of them prefer people to filter houses online rather than on the phone.

Here’s hoping that someone pays attention and actually produces some quality software that people can enjoy using!

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