Hey Everyone! After launching this off campus housing site about 4 months ago, I am now looking for any ideas that can come from this melting pot of students and critics on TWW. Let me know what you think could be done to improve the site, and add to whats already there!

http://www.GoOffCampus.com

Thanks WWers

disclaimer.... I bought advertising for TWW, so please treat this as a serious inquiry.

4/17/2006 12:25:52 AM

you might take a drag
but you can't flame on

-ZiP!-

4/17/2006 12:52:33 AM

Quick suggestions:
-Spice up the navigation bars on the left with graphics/rollover/something ... not a big thing
-Hire a design student to do a new logo for you
-It took me a minute or two to find the "houses for rent" as a tiny link on the bottom of the main page. Rethink how you want to have the navigation layout. (Not sure what your target market/audience is right now.)

Overall, fairly clean/fast site. If you can find a way to integrate advertising into the flash on the main page ... you are solid. I'd love to be able to click on the flash animation if I saw an apartment complex or house I REALLY liked.

[Edited on April 17, 2006 at 5:47 AM. Reason : .]

4/17/2006 5:46:44 AM

Ah... for the houses for rent thing... I guess I assume too much when I put the second navigation link on the left that says "vacant units". In essence, that take the user to view all the houses, apartments, condos, ect that are vacant... meaning the whole place is for rent.

Since I do not have them classisfied as houses, apartments, condos, ect., then what would better wording for that be that might be easier to understand at first glance?

4/17/2006 7:12:13 AM

BUT, if the house is occupied, it isn't vacant. Distinguishing between "looking for now" and "looking for later" sort of approach. I'll PM you with some thoughts/ideas.

4/17/2006 7:16:46 AM

I know you probably can't change this, but maybe have people put a mandatory contact phone number. I have sent countless emails with no avail; I'd much rather know ASAP if a place is no longer for rent/more info about the rental in general.

4/17/2006 8:08:16 AM

Central is listed twice in the drop-down menu

4/17/2006 8:54:14 AM

I actually used to have it that way, but people are gay and dont like to put their phone # on there...

So after complaints, I took it off the details page. Maybe I should just put it back on though. I personally would rather have a phone number on there also. Good suggestion though! Thanks!

4/17/2006 8:54:26 AM

maybe just say, "For Rent"

did you ever find someone to do sales for you?

4/17/2006 11:57:16 AM

Yes, I have someone who started last week. Thanks for your interest though.

So maybe, For Rent and Rooms/Subleases as the two separate categories?? Is this as self explanatory as it seems to me?

4/17/2006 12:48:08 PM

i was saying to use "For Rent" instead of vacancies.

if you are gonna break it up further, I would do "apartments" as in things through the complexes and then "rooms / subleases"

4/17/2006 1:09:06 PM

Yeah, I like that Idea...

I already have things sortof categorized as "Whole apartments for rent" and Subleases.

So really, I just want some wording that would be most intuitive. Keep the suggestions coming!! And Thanks!!

4/17/2006 5:42:36 PM

Is there a way to click on the apartment and see it on the map?

I see the google maps thing above the list of all apartments, but it would be nice to see a map for each complex when you click on it. If it's already there I couldn't find it

you can click on each thing on the map and it tells the apartment, but that is a pain to click and then find it on the list. It would be much nicer to have a zoomed in map on each apartment info page.

4/17/2006 6:26:51 PM

Thats definately a good suggestion... I have been working on a little something along those lines...

http://www.gooffcampus.com/maptest5.php

Tell me what you think!

4/17/2006 7:29:16 PM

I haven't read this whole thread, so appologise if this has been said...

Anyway, first, great site. Second, on the few rooms/apartments that I clicked, there was no indication how long the lease would run. That's something that I'd want to know.

Hope this helps!

4/17/2006 8:04:19 PM

Quote :

"Tell me what you think!"

I would suggest that when you click "view" it zooms in more, so you can clearly see how close to campus the location is. On the big map there are so many dots, you can hardly tell where the place is.

4/17/2006 9:01:38 PM

I wouldn't suggest putting your email addresses on the contact page like you have them unless you want the addresses to become spam magnets. I would post them as GIFs, or something like "joe (at) website.com."

4/17/2006 9:35:39 PM

gotta get the text to fit inside the pop-up bubbles on the maps...can't see the links easily

4/17/2006 9:58:00 PM

^ What browser are you using? It stays in the box just fine whenever I use mozilla and IE, but I have seen it look ugle with my Mac at work, but it is still in the box.

4/17/2006 10:29:45 PM