Analysis of sma-real-estate.com

Date of analysis: 04/11/2007

This page is the result of an assignment from my GRCP230 Web Authoring class in which our instructor, Marc Tringali, requested an analysis of the web site yuccado.com

Quick link menu: Initial Thoughts:

Very slow load time. It took too long to load the home web page. I'm unsure why considering there really aren't that many graphics or pictures on the main page. The main page seems fairly simple.

The horizontal nav bar on the left is pretty straight forward, nice looking and nicely aligned. Seems to have a decent amount of links and information contained within it.

Personally, I don't like the background color much. But it does have a mexican, adobe house sort of feel to it.

The first thing I notice when I look at the main page is the header and nav bar. They seem off balance to me. The header should be the full length of the page and the nav bar should be located just below the header. Incorporating some blue into the header also would be a good idea. This would tie the header into the nav bar.

This page gives me a sense of organization. These guys seem to have a good understanding of proper web page layout. I am pleased with the overall design of the main page because it is easy to understand, not allot of content and text to scare the visitor away, but just enough content to be inviting.

I like the "Featured Listings" animation on the main page. It adds a sense of interactivity to the web site which makes it more interesting.

I tested the search engine on this site and noticed that when I hovered the cursor over the pictures it brought up for my search results, alt text popped up but it simply said the name of the picture "thumb_247_189902z.jpg", a poor use of the alt text function.

The pictures in the listings do link to larger images, but these images are not large enough. The images should be full screen or at least 800x600 considering some of these houses sell for upwards of 1.2 million dollars. For 1.2 million dollars, I expect the real estate company to provide impressive large images of the house, not small pictures.

Another thing that could be improved are the thumbnails in the house listings. Some of the thumbnails are 189 x 134 pixels, while others are 189 x 135, and still others are 189 x 279 pixels. The differing sizes of the thumbnails add inconsistency to the web site The thumbnails should all be the same size.

In the house descriptions area, i'd like to see more details of the house. More descriptions of what qualities of the house would entice me into thinking about buying from them. Also, I noticed in several of the house descriptions the square footage and lot sizes are not listed or updated. This information is important to anyone considering buying a piece of property.

The content is presented well and laid out in an easy to understand fashion. There are bold headings for easy capability and clear links to contact information.

This site does rely on the use of graphics for its look and feel, but I wouldn't say it is an extensive usage. There has to be a certain amount of graphics on a web page, especially if the company wants to use logos and what not. I count only 6 graphics on the main page. It is nice because there is allot of white space. It makes the page and site feel open and comfortable, not congested with images and graphics.

I was taken back by all the different types of font used on the main page, I counted 11 total, including the fonts on the graphics.

I identified several inconsistencies with several pages. When switching from the "Search Listings" page to the "View All Listings" page there is an inconsistency with the page position. The entire page shifts to the left a few pixels, enough to be noticeable. Also, the date on the right side of the screen shifts about 20 pixels to the left. This also happens when switching from the "Houses" link to the "Apartments" link. When switching from the "View All Listings" page to the "Houses" page the table that displays the picture of the house followed by the price expands another 20 or so pixels to the right instead of staying the same size as the last search result. This adds a small sense of inconsistency to the web site.

This web site does make use of rollover effects. The nav bar turns red when hovered over. This adds interactivity which is important to keep a visitors attention. The web site also uses rollover effects on the search pages. The Refine Search and Next 100 rollover effects are a little screwy. When hovered over they grow shorter and taller instead of changing color. This isn't a good effect as far as i'm concerned. I would rather see the buttons stay the same shape and in the same position and change color when hovered over. The nice thing about the hover attribute on these two buttons is that when you hover over them, you can actually read the text on the button. Something rather difficult to do when the text is black and the background is dark blue.

Shopping Cart:

The shopping cart for this web site is easy to find. Nearly all the links in the upper half of the nav bar take you to the shopping cart, which is simply a display of all the lots and homes available. The shopping cart itself is laid out well and easy to understand and seems to be arranged in a logical pattern with search functions and alternating color styles separating the different houses.

There are pictures of each home for sale, but unfortunately there are only a few. I would like as many as possible of the house from inside and outside. I found it hard to grasp what each house really looked like as a whole, inside and out, because of the lack of sufficient pictures. The pictures were also quite small which left me desiring larger more detailed pictures.

Adequate product information?

There is sufficient information about each house for sale including how many bedrooms, baths and the year it was built. Additionally there are small listings of extra information that describe some basic things about the houses, but I found myself wanting to know more. The square footage of both the house and the lots were not entered, and under the "Features" heading all that was listed was "Many Extras" which isn't enough information for me. I also wanted to see a map maybe of the area they were in to get a better idea of the surroundings.

The web site describes the overall basics, but I want to see more than the basics, especially if I plan on spending 1.2 million dollars on a home through this company.

Suggested improvements:

A fine tuned header.

Consistent nav bar and page alignment throughout the web site.

Change the color scheme such as the background color, and nav bar colors.

More detailed information about both the company and their products.

Better use of CSS scripting to improve the look and feel of the site.

This web site would also benefit from a decent header image that incorporates several of the existing visual elements in some of the pictures.

Relocate the nav bar below the a new custom header.

Larger pictures of the houses and a revised thumbnail gallery to fix the thumbnail display issue.

Web site Summation:

This web site is well organized and consistent for the most part in the design and layout of the different pages. It is a well thought out, well made and nicely organized web site, my favorite of the three simply because the other two left more to be desired in the presentation field. The nav bars, the links, the way the houses are laid out on the page when viewing multiple houses on a single page, shows the author of this web site invested time and thought into its layout, although it could use some improvement.

The web site's search system is a nice touch, allowing visitors to search for specific needs. The search engine seems to work well also (unlike the Clark College search system!).

It is unfortunate that the web site takes so long to load the most important pages, those being the product, and the search pages. The rest of the pages such as the SMA Map, About Us, Contact Us, View Agents and etc... load reasonably quickly.

Unfortunately the slow page loading would drive me away almost instantly. I pay for a 9mb/sec internet connection, I expect reasonably fast service while browsing online. Waiting for pages to load on this site makes me feel as if I am back in the 90's using my U.S. Robotics 56K dial up modem.

With a more CSS scripting, tweaked visuals, and more speed this web site would be great.