Wednesday 22 July 2009

Globrix gets a face lift

Globrix has a new home page and some other new goodies inside.

Constructive criticism is always of use and my humble comments are below.

Moving from a google style search page to what I would call a more traditional based home page requires going back to basics a little. It requires a review of basic usability issues and navigation.

Look at Zillow and Trulia in the States and they both have traditional layouts, with tabs and sub menus together with the larger search box. New boys Zoopla also adopt this style and I believe one needs to adopt one or the other, i.e. google style search no clutter (Nestoria) or search and traditional navigation/usability features.

To this end, I would very respectfully suggest the following:

1. I feel that tabs/menu option ought to have been introduced. It feels as if the information presented is in unfamiliar areas and not following basic usability/navigation principles and will thus confuse the poor old user.

2. I love the 'Know' feature, but why not call it something the user may understand and then join it to the Buy.Sell buttons which are now arguably part of the brand. Does this need a sub menu to ensure the user can find what he or she is searching (comments above apply)? Is this branding more brand than functionality? I have said before the Buy.Sell buttons look nice, but do they work? Why would I click on 'Know'? As a new or infrequent user there is a danger I would see this as just part of the logo/brand.

3. Although I am a bit of a large text fanatic, the text below the search box is way too small on my screen.

Looking inside there are some other goodies.

Property details pages have been updated and provide a host of goodies for the user, namely house sale prices, property sold in the month, trends in that area etc etc. Not all properties have this feature and I am not sure whether it is a paid for addition (i.e. featured listing) or whether it is the agents choice, I suspect the former. Although a paid for service, the details page is better than many agents' websites and therefore a much more attractive option for the user and well worth considering.

One small niggling point is the details page allows other agents to advertise on that page (sponsored agents). The actual agent selling the property is not clear and this will confuse the user.

Now I love the guys and girls at Globrix and I love to see new developments, new functionality and look forward to seeing Globrix.ie, iphone apps and all the other goodies. The above is by no means negative, on the contrary it is positive criticism and those in the know, will know! Ahha, maybe 'Know' is part of an advertising strategy?!

1 comment:

PoppyD said...

Feedback gratefully received :-)

We're definitely listening to all that people have to say about the new layout and what people thinks works/doesn't work.

A clarification on the details pages, they're not a paid for service. The reason that some properties don't have them is because of incomplete postcodes...if an agent hasn't provided an accurate enough address then we cannot create an accurate details page and therefore don't offer this extra functionality. We're communicating with agents that they need to use as accurate address details as possible.

Thanks :)