We’re continually working with the team at Lucas Fox to deliver great experiences for their site users and to align the site with current business needs and requirements.
A recent project was the redesign and implementation across the site of a new property search user interface.
Rethinking the search and refinifing the user experience
The property search module is such an important part of the web site and our goal is always that users can quickly and intuitively search for properties and filter the results. The previous iteration of the search module had been in place for quite a while without any significant revisions and we felt that it was time to see where interface and experience improvements could be made.
Working with the Lucas Fox team we defined our goals and looked closely at current common practises within the online real estate space. From this we developed some simple wireframes to communicate our intentions for the new interfaces and gathered feedback from the team.
We wanted to make the search as easy and intuitive to use as possible, giving the user a streamlined search experience. A key part of this was switching to use (on wider screens) a horizontal search bar which sticks to the top of the browser window as the user scrolls down through the search results. The sticky search bar aims to reduce friction for users who wish to quickly modify or start a new search.
We also looked at how to better allow users to apply filters to their search. We added to the main search bar a filters button which opens up a panel showing all available filters for the current search criteria. This new interface element aligns the filters very closely to the main search elements and creates a single, cohesive and intuitive search experience. And by displaying a count of how many filters are applied at any given time, we also give the user important visual feedback on the current search.
For users on smaller screens we combine the search and filter options into a single fullscreen overlay which is compact, concise and appropriate for the user display. This works very well and means that we are able to deliver a great search experience for all users.
Positive feedback and measuring results
Feedback has been very positive from the team and of course we are closely monitoring usage and interactions from users in order to get real world data about the module’s usage and performance. Feel free to visit the site and take the new search interface for a spin.
If you have a project that would be a good fit for our skills and experience, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!