Keith Ian

Keith Ian contacted Advanced Web Designs to redevelop their existing website with a modern responsive design. They had already seen some of our other work for local estate agents and wanted us to come up with a modern design inline with their recently updated corporate identity.

The directors of Keith Ian wanted a fresh looking website with a medium level of user experience (UX) to showcase their three branches, together with promotion of the properties on offer in both their Sales and Lettings portfolio. The search also needed to be easy to use, and allow website visitors to find properties using various options and criteria.

Potential property owners looking to sell or rent their homes would need to quickly and easily submit forms, providing details of the property to the relevant branch based on location.

All three branches of Keith Ian use Vebra (a popular estate agency Customer relationship management systems (CRM) software) so it was important for them to have their property data synchronize with the website.

As requested, the design of the Keith Ian website showcases their new corporate identity. The three main photos work as navigation to each of their branches, covering the three locations they operate in.

We custom built a very unique user experience element by using the mouse to hover over the branch location image the user wishes to visit. As the user hovers over, the photo area enlarges slightly to reveal more of the photo. The other areas are then narrowed down to accommodate the selected branch. This ‘user experience’ feature is novel without being ‘over the top’, and really aids the user in making their selection. By clicking on the chosen location, the branch is then selected and a property search bar is presented.

The search we developed for the site is very unique and works ‘on the fly’ as selections are made. Referred to as AJAX, data is pulled in live on the page of results without need to reload the page contents. This cuts down the time it takes for the website visitor to get the right information they are looking for. In this case, the search facility can find and display properties based on their criteria, quickly and efficiently.

To integrate Vebra, we use our custom developed module to feed property data into the website including text, imagery and floorplans. In the instance with Keith Ian, each branch has a different version of Vebra, which as a result meant we had to make a few tweaks to ensure that the data matched up correctly depending on the branch. Vebra updates their records twice a day so we do the same and sync this data at two key points, thus ensuring the website is as up to date as it can be for that day. The process is seamless to both the branches and the website visitor.

In terms of enquiry forms, each branch receive the enquiry based on a number of factors. Unlike normal sites, the system is intelligent enough that it can find the best person suited to deal with the enquiry.

As a final touch to the property page, we directly integrated with the Google maps API to offer a map that is tailored to the Keith Ian site, with the icon to accompany it.