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List4Rent

acarrothersacarrothers subscriber Posts: 1
edited October 2010 in Website Critique
Hi There,
Please critique List4Rent.ca
List4Rent is a tool for landlords to advertise their rental properties online, through detailed rental listings. List4Rent is also a resource for renters to search and discover properties that are available for rent in their local area via tranditional or map based search.

WeddingServiceList.ca



Comments

  • host_samuraihost_samurai subscriber Posts: 0
    Here are my thoughts on some of the things I think you got right:

    Nice page hierarchy - I didn't feel lost browsing the site
    Nice distiguishable search bar on the homepage
    A clear description of what the site is about
    Good usability - I can email the poster, browse their site, and browse listings from the same page, etc.
    Nice interface for browsing listings

    My 2 cents on certain aspects of the design that need some attention:

    The color gray makes the site look dull and generic. In addition, it makes the site look like just another site when it could be "the" site to go to for finding rental properties in Canada. Gray may not necessarily represent the goal of the site, if you know color theory I mean.
    The call-to-action button on the main page needs to be more prominent and have a more energetic color if you want more listings to come in. You want to give off the confidence that if someone posts a listing there, they are going to find a tenant for their rental, no doubt about it.

    In terms of usability:

    You may want to add some javascript validation to your forms. In other words, you want to validate each input field as the user fills it in, instead of waiting for them to push the submit button and having them find out they didn't fill all the fields correctly. It saves the user time and promotes a better user experience.
    At first glance, the form for posting a listing looks too long. That could intimidate users from posting listings. Instead, you could use "breadcrumbs" and make it seem less menacing.
    Also in the listings form, why do I need to press the "here" link after filling out the address fields? This should be done automatically for the user on the server-side. No need to have them do extra work.
    There's no indication telling the user the map is loading. What are users on slow connections going to think is going on?

    On the technical side of things:

    There doesn't seem to be any form validation on the server-side. I tested one of your forms and I could submit by inputting one letter for each of the fields and the captcha.
    Your html source contains a lot, and I mean A LOT, of unnecessary markup. This makes page loading slow and decreases the overall user experience. Slow page loads = less users.
    Your server is not gzip'ping your components, meaning for slower page loads
    I mention all of this since you're likely to feel the pain at some point.

    Overall, it's not a bad site but I feel it needs some tweaking here and there. Hope this proved insightful. Good luck!

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