How this site was constructed:
For those interested in the technical aspects of this web design:
Speed: This site was built for speed. We understand buyers want to see listings and not some flashy intro that is why we keep our pages on a bandwidth diet so buyers can get in fast - get want they want. The site is not intended to be pretty, it is intended to be fast and usable. It was a tough decision to not place property thumbnail photos on the home page along side the listings - the decision was a "no" because it would have added a little too much loading time for our visitors. There are plenty of photos of each property in the listing detail page however.
Neighborhood Photos: We wanted to give the buyers something they could really use - so we included tons of photos around town so buyers could not only see what each area looked like they could also compare prices as well. We also included schools and shopping areas. This was done with a GPS unit and a digital camera. After we collected many GPS memories and photos we can quickly upload the photos and coordinates through our custom interface. After entering the coordiates our Flash file automatically generates the yellow dot on the photo savings us much time.
Backend server-side: We use Coldfusion for it's speed of development.
Database: We choose MySQL because of the cost and because it is very fast and reliable.
Hosting: We decided to use Crystaltech hosting service out of AZ because of it's superior tech support and reliability. They are also know as one of the best Coldfusion hosts anywhere.
CSS: We use Cascading Style Sheets for faster page loads and to easily maintain and modify this site quickly. The tool-tip popup's you see used throughout the site are all done using CSS. CSS also increases the Text to HTML Ratio which is both good for speed and search engines.
HTML Validation: Most all of our pages validate XHTML 1.1. This helps all browsers display this site correctly.
Code editor: We use Dreamweaver MX because it is the industry standard and because we feel it is by far the best product out there.
Usability Testing: We have watch dozens of users actually use this site and have made many changes after watching the users stumble through a task. We have also followed many of the guidelines provided by the User Interface Engineering web site - this accounts for the somewhat "sparse" layout of the site and the lack of graphics. It has been shown over and over again in tests that if users can find information quickly (fast download times and simple clean design practices) that users rate the site higher and find the site more credible.
SSL: The checkout process for paying for a listing is done through a secured server. For security reasons, no credit card numbers are stored in the database.
Spam protection: For those sellers wishing to be contacted by email and place their email on their listing, we have designed a feature that will make it difficult for spiders to automatically harvest their email address off of this site.
Deferred login in: We choose to have the seller listing their property not have to login right way before previewing their listing. Although this was harder for us when making this site it helps the seller signup process much less confusing.
Photo Gallery: The photos of the properties are displayed using Flash. We decided on Flash because Flash will not distort photos by changing the aspect ratio as other techniques do.
Last revised October 6, 2004
@2004 City-List v.1