HAR.com, the local real estate association’s web site, where you can find all the up to date listing data, has been a model of terrible usability for ages; a typical session looking at listings, saving them, and searching usually requires you to log in about 47 times in 15 minutes, hit the back button to find the key navigational elements that keep disappearing, and so on.
This week they “upgraded” it, so now it’s still a train wreck, but if you’re using Safari, you can’t see any of your saved listings anymore! You just get a blank screen. Apparently the concept of testing things in different browsers is foreign to the geniuses who do their web work.
In Houston, there are probably thousands of 19 year olds who could build a much better site and charge just enough money to buy pizza and beer. Someone at HAR ought to hire a couple of them.
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I completely agree with you and totally do not understand what the fucking problem is. Realtor.com is a horror show of a website. Local sites tend to be even worse. The other group that seems addicted to Flash based websites that take forever to load and obscure what it is you’re actually looking for is automotive websites. Why every auto manufacturer feels a need to run splash screens and music and build their sites in all Flash is beyond me. And forget about the local dealerships…
Yes! There are a couple auto manufacturers’ websites that I just refuse to go to (and hence probably won’t buy their cars) because of the difficulty navigating and loading.
I will say that it wouldn’t surprise me if we, and most of the people who regularly read this blog, are a bit more analytical and computer-savvy than average — meaning that I have a feeling that a lot of people out there just click on the website and let it do its thing (“look, flashy graphics and ‘vrooom’ noises coming from my speakers, cool!”), as opposed to say me going on Volvo’s website to search for specific information on turning radius or the European delivery program. So it may be that for most web users, the experience they get is just fine.
As for realtor sites – I have a feeling they’re deliberately designed poorly to encourage you to get a realtor (who will then send you emails with links to house listings that you should be able to pull up on your own).
I’ve had the opportunity in doing projects for some realtors out there to work with HAR and I can tell you that, while they have a LOT to balance, there is no question that they have real problems when it comes to making things easier on end users.
One of the major issues is that they really don’t have a ton of incentive to do anything in the first place because they ARE the listing service. You have to use them or your home doesn’t get listed.
They are also burdened with a huge number of broker requests and broker-specific application developments they do because, to them, the broker is their customer, not the home buyer or seller. So, their emphasis is on making it easier for realtors to do their jobs, not for buyers to find a home.
Because really, getting buyers excited about homes that are on the market is a terrible, terrible way to drum up business for realtors.
(I get your point – it just illustrates the serious short-sightedness of HAR.)
Have you tried ZipRealty? I find its search engine to be more usable than HAR’s. For one thing, I can search by MAX year built, not just “newer than 10 years”, so I can e.g. search for foreclosures in 77006 that were built before 1940. Yes, they do assign you a Realtor(tm).
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