Archive for the 'Site Reviews' Category

Mapping the UX of Real Estate Searches

Published
by
scenariogirl
on July 9, 2009
in Site Reviews and User Experience
. Closed

Researching property on Google Maps Real Estate is a bit like ordering crab for dinner. A lot of effort for a little bit of meat.

I spend a lot of time on real estate websites. I make (sometimes numerous) daily visits and average about 7 hours a week for personal use (I’ll no doubt regret saying that). So Google Maps (And let’s just be honest here, that’s all it is: a mapping device with a couple of filters) just isn’t the right tool “for me” at the moment. That’s not to say it isn’t useful, I just doubt it’s going to “badly hurt Australian websites“. While it does appear to be good at aggregating information usually found in the top three Australian real estate websites (in my case), that’s about all it does for now.

I say ‘at the moment’ and ‘for now’ because who knows what they intend to do in the future. But let’s put this in perspective, Google isn’t exactly known for fantastic User Experiences. Right now, the most likely scenario for me may be to use it as a ready made RSS feed, one that just happens to have a few simple filters.

While it’s true, real estate sites have appropriated a very useful (Google) mapping tool to improve the user experience of their online offerings, Goggle has scraped a huge amount of content and merely added a couple of basic filters. Right now it isn’t even possible to rank property prices in ascending/descending order.

In actual fact, Google Maps is a pretty lousy research tool. Even fundamental nationwide searches to identify properties using price as a filter can be frustrating. Search results are inaccurate and clearly the result of non-human input. Who would have thought you could get a 42 sq. house in the outer Melbourn suburb of Berwick for a single buck (AUD$1)? As much as my inner slum lord wanted to, it took me about as long as it does to copy and paste the url into a browser to realise you can’t… $1 or $1.1 MILLION. What’s the difference?

And that’s another of the many frustrations I experienced on the site. Way too many clicks and C+V’s to view a property.

The worst part is, I just don’t trust it. And when I say trust, I don’t mean I think they’re tracking all my mouse clicks or they’ve got a dodgy URL (and they do). I just don’t trust that I’m getting all the available data. If I search for Darlington, for example, and get results for Alexandria and Ultimo (both two suburbs away), I do wonder what gems I might have missed. Moving across to Annandale, it tells me there are “about 1,964 (properties for sale)”. Doubtful, considering it has a population of just over 8,000 people and is about 1 square KM in size. But, I could be wrong.

In a nut shell, it’s a cute little RSS feed, but it certainly won’t replace my good old fashioned email alerts and hard core physical dredging… I don’t mind working for my food, but I do want something in return. Having said all that though, I’ve just found an interesting place that promises a 7+% return p/a… so in hind sight…it does show *some* promise, perhaps…

They Should Know So Much Better

Published
by
scenariogirl
on May 9, 2008
in Accessibility and Site Reviews
. 10 Comments

Evaluating the accessibility of a site is an involved process that takes time and can’t always be automated.

Yes there are some helpful tools available, but many times it’s a matter of looking at the code, the interface or the content and evaluating a site manually. Sometimes things are so painfully obvious, it takes half a nanosecond to see that there’s a problem and wow, it’s so big it’s a joke.

Given that it’s 2008, most of these sites are around ten years old. But every now and then there’s a new kid on the block and, well… don’t you just wish someone had told them boy bands died out in the 90’s…?

Three months ago I was sent a link to the relaunched UTS Interactive Multimedia course site. I’ll give you the link in a second, but before I do, let me issue this warning: If you suffer from seizures, don’t go there sister.

The Home page has been designed with an “interesting” Flash animation that strobes colour at a rate I’m guessing is much faster than 3 blinks per second.

It absolutely astounds me that a design like that has made it into a redesign in 2008. Worse still, I emailed the department as soon as I saw it and advised them that the flashing seemed quite a high rate and pointed them to the appropriate WCAG checkpoint 7.1, a Priority 1 issue. Even in WCAG 2 this is a Level 1 failure (success criteria 2.3.1).

Unfortunately nothing has been done in the last three months. Can a Flash animation be that important that it is retained, despite the fact that it has the potential to induce seizures in site users? And what message is this sending students of The Interactive Multimedia course?

The Trouble with Tools

I’ve yet to find a web tool that is able to measure the flicker rate of a .swf file. This is a problem. In conducting accessibility reviews, it’s usually obvious when a flicker rate is unsafe, but it’s always better if you can provide evidence. With Gifs it’s easy as there are a number of good tools around that can conduct a flicker test. But with Flash files, you need the .fla file to check frame rates. So in a situation like the one I’ve just described, without the source file, it’s pretty difficult to get an accurate measure.

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words…

I’m probably not doing myself any favours in writing this post. I’m three subjects off completing my Masters of Interactive Multimedia at UTS, so criticising the department’s new website isn’t the smartest thing I’ve done this week. But it’s clearly not the smartest thing they’ve done this year either.

I’m completely astounded that it made it into the design in the first place. I know the people involved in the redesign and it amazes me that they either don’t know or don’t care. Including a design feature like that says so much about the departments knowledge or position on website accessibility.

But as they say, a picture tells a thousand words, so how many words is a flickering Flash animation worth?

Related Links

UTS Graduate Courses in Interactive Multimedia