review: web project for real estate company

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey all,

Let me know your thoughts on a recent design I did for a real estate company.
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/9187/gallaudet.jpg

Background:

* The blue colors are their "official" colors
* They asked for just a younger more friendly site-and showed me some "web 2.0" product site examples to keep in mind.
* The search and a slideshow on the right was to be the focus of the site
2

Did you deliberately make it indistinguishable from a kazillion other sites?

3

yes, exactly…thanks

4

I would remove the question marks from “Select city?”

Are you asking me, or is it an imperative?

Also, why does a real estate firm need a blog? Attempting to jump onto the “Web 2.0” bandwagon for the hell of it comes off as silly if it is poorly executed. I don’t want to see properties listed on Twitter; I want to go to a website which organizes real estate listings and information clearly by cost and geographic parameters. Similarly, I can’t imagine why I’d want to sign up for a “Gallaudet Newsletter.” I’m trying to buy a home right now, Gallaudet is either listing a property I’m interested in right now or it isn’t, and if it isn’t, I’m not going to give a damn when they hire a new agent in 8 months after I’ve already bought my house. Why do I need to sign-in for a real-estate website? Perhaps there’s a sensible reason for this, but that reason is not readily apparent to me, and Gallaudet’s web site certainly will not be transforming into “The Next Twitter,” in a few months.

So, I’d do some serious thinking about why people actually visit a real-estate website (to purchase a house or establish a relationship with an agent) and redesign accordingly. You may have to provide your clients with a bit of striking via Clue-by-four.

The graphics are reasonably professional and it certainly won’t embarrass the client, so you’re doing reasonably well.

5

Thanks threemae,

I actually have no input regarding the content of the site-the company I am working with handed me the requirements, which includes a blog :frowning:

6

Looks decent but that’s only one page. As a programmer/designer, I’m much more interested in the design of the inner pages. People are just going to hit the front page and do a search. What do the search result and property listing pages look like?

7

agreed :slight_smile: I’ve gotta get the homepage approved before I start doing inner pages.

8

Something to me looks missing on the top menu - maybe a box on the active state along with the arrow?