Think Property
The Challenge
When searching for a property, more than 80% of people choose to look online, making the online experience of paramount importance in their decision-making journey.
Thinkproperty.com commissioned User Vision to undertake a review of their site, testing and comparing their site with a number of competitors with the aim of improving the customer experience.
The Solution
The task given to User Vision was to identify the user-centred design activities at the different stages of the property search process in order to ensure that the user's goals were satisfied. The search process of finding a property that matches the individual user requirements is understandably a complex, highly visual, and emotive task involving the comparison of numerous elements from location, to price and appearance.
In order to satisfy these requirements, two User-Centred test sessions were conducted:
- Usability Testing of current site and competitor analysis - to test the usability, navigation and user perception of the current site and a number of its main competitors.
- User Eye tracking analysis - to test the area of focus during task completion.
The Outcome
The results and recommendations provided to Thinkproperty were both clear and thorough. Competitor analysis showed Thinkproperty was seen as a highly competitive player in the property market, offering a wide range of efficient and valued services, outperforming its competitors in a number of areas such as functionality and attractiveness. More than half of the tested participants agreed that they preferred Thinkproperty to the competitor's sites reviewed. Having implemented our recommendations, Thinkproperty experienced a significant 45% increase in the highly profitable enquiries to agents journey.
As a result of the User Vision study, we are updating our site as part of our ongoing commitment to excellence in usability. We have already made improvements to the ‘contact agent’ process for people wishing to enquire about a particular property directly with an agent….Enquiries to agents increased by 45% since the enhancement went live in mid-July.
Mark Goddard, Marketing Director, thinkproperty.com
