Weaknesses of other student housing websites:
- Garish and clashing colours
- Dated
- Everything on different websites
- Cluttered
- Hard to search filters quickly
Strengths of other student housing websites:
- Sliders for price
- Filters in one line
- Minimal text and images
- Star Ratings on properties / landlords
- Ability to select single rooms aswell as number of bedrooms
- Semester Lets available
- Tells you how many houses are still available on the website
- Flicking through pictures using arrows without having to view the house on a separate page.
Examples of the landing pages for some students letting agents in leeds:
Some of the websites are not as bad as others however none of them are particularly sleek or modern. A good landing page should include filters as the main focus so users can get on with their search straight away. Keeping the search for a house fun, engaging and exciting.
One of the better examples. Contains filters on the first page and a quick search option for number of bedrooms. Some of the filter options are confusing such as price per calendar month. This applies more to young professionals than students who would look for price per week per student eg. £80 a week. This layout is more neutral and less cluttered creating a more efficient and engaging look.
Glaring and clashing colours, filters spread out in an overly complicated layout. Strange floral border, not modern. too many links and buttons dotted about. Can't get straight into the search.
Awful colour scheme, use of map is very helpful and a good feature. The filters need some work. Thumbnails are less cluttered than other websites. Lots of different letting agents in on place which is helpful. Option to add friends into group to share houses and option to shortlist findings into one space rather than bookmarking lots of tabs.
Lots of different filters and navigation options, overly complicated layout. unnatracitve colour scheme, not very modern.
Awful landing page, very cluttered, complicated and dated.
Modern landing page but extremely feminine. Easy to navigate with good positioning of filters.
More modern and gender neutral colours. Restricted search options focussing on number of bedrooms as priority for the search.
Muted colour scheme with a cluttered layout and too much information on the first page. Only filter option is number of bedrooms.
Option for advanced search, quick search and saved search options which is useful for viewing new properties which meet your criteria. Use of illustration rather than images creates a 'younger' look but isn't particularly sleek or modern. Limited colour palette is more effective.
Search filters in one clear, uncluttered space. Gender Neutral colour palette. Easy to navigate.
Engaging colour palette, easy to use filters, helpful, easy to navigate.
My concept is similar to the way in which Rightmove students works as it has all the houses from the different letting agents in one place however it would be more modern, engaging and accessible from a number of different platforms. The filters would also be more specific and it would contain options for erasmus students / people only looking to rent for a certain amount of time etc.
Through my research I found that 'StuRents' did the most similar approach to my idea in displaying a number of different letting agents on one site, making it easy to view all the other houses available in a concentrated area.
Looking at other comparing websites I researched the elements such as layout, colour scheme and usability to see what worked well and looked effective.
Trainline and sky scanner use gender neutral and calming colour palettes with a focus on a large engaging background image. The filters are east to change and select and you can't move onto the next stage without selecting the filters you desire. Their layouts are uncluttered, calm and engaging.
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