About This Project

This website concept was created as a final project for IT-270-X1360 Web Site Design by Sheniece Beller, Fall 2018. It focuses on an imaginary home inspection business. The site was designed to include features that would benefit an actual inspection company: listed legal responsibilities, package descriptions, contact form, and a pricing table.

Documentation and Development Process

My ultimate goal in creating this website was to create a clean, professional page that would generate appointment requests (sales). Many home owners may not realize they have an option to "shop around" for a home inspector. The purpose of the site was to raise awareness of the varying price options that exist between the many inspection companies in my local area. Ideally, home buyers would be more inclined to schedule an appointment with my company once they were presented with the upfront pricing table and other helpful information on the site.

In order to ensure I met my objectives for this site, I began by researching my state’s regulation methods for home inspections. I verified licensing and inspection area requirements. I also explored other local inspection company’s websites to see how their pricing and scheduling options differed.

Defense of the Final Product

While creating this site, I carefully researched the demographics of local home buyers. According to the National Association of REALTORS, the average age of the American home buyer was 45 years old in 2017. Of the buyers surveyed, 65% were married couples. Also, of the homes purchased, 85% were previously owned. These statistics led me to believe that my target audience would be married or committed couples between the ages of 35-50 years old. I chose a neutral color palette that aligned with my audience’s age and the serious subject matter of the site. I also chose a traditional font - Times New Roman - based on evidence that it conveys a sense of reliability and trustworthiness (C., 2018). Times New Roman is also touted as the easiest font to read when compared to other serif and ans-serif fonts (Morrison & Noyes, 2003). It is believed that our minds closely associate Times New Roman with hand-written lettering, therefore, making it easier for the brain to quickly associate letter combinations into the correct words.

On the Home page of the site, I opted to include a cover photo depicting a row of neighborhood homes. This quickly establishes the site’s field of purpose to the user: homes. I also included photos of the inspectors above each biography snippet. Providing a photo creates a sense of trust with the user, since they can see each inspector and feel comfortable knowing those are the people who will be assisting them. Providing background about the company and each inspector also deepens the sense of trust – it conveys that the company is a small homegrown business with expertise and a caring mindset.

The Services page defines the areas with a home that each inspection package covers. This eliminates any questions users may have about what exactly will be inspected. Personally, I have dealt with customers at a similar business and they are often confused about exactly what is covered and what is not. By listing the features of each package, users can determine which type of inspection they need. I also chose to include a map on the page to clearly delineate the travel area of the inspectors. Users need only give the map a quick glance to determine whether or not they are within the covered area.

Legal Information is a plain page. I opted not to include any images and very little font manipulation based on the subject matter of the page. I felt that users on this page should be focused on the content of the text – not any icons, media, or fancy lettering.

The Price Estimator page provides a table that allows users to determine the price of their inspection based upon square footage of the home and the package they chose. The table is clean and easy to read. A link back to the Services page lets users jump back to the package list, in case they need to review which areas should be inspected. A button link to the Contact page is also located below the price table. This encourages users to jump straight to the contact form to request an appointment.

Contact Us contains a simple form users may fill out to request an inspection or more information. The information requested is limited only to what is necessary. Users can choose to provide a phone number or email address, allowing them to choose the option they are comfortable with. By keeping the form simple, users who are often apprehensive of sharing personal data may be more inclined to submit. No exact address is requested, and we also do not mention anything about a newsletter (often read as “spam”).

Finally, the FAQ page allows users to find answers to common questions they may have. This further deepens the sense of caring and trust with the company. Users may see this helpful page as a way that the company goes above and beyond to help their clients.

Opportunities for Improvement and Growth

If there had been more time to fully explore the potential of this site, I would change a few things. First, I would have liked the Home page to feature a cover video, rather than a cover photo. I think it would add some interest to the page and make it look more professionally designed. Secondly, many companies offer a live chat option on their site. Adding a chat widget to the site would allow users to instantly schedule appointments, change existing appointments, and ask questions about their returned inspection reports. I think this would greatly improve the customer service reputation of the company.

In the future, I would like to convert the table on the Price Estimator page to an interactive calculator. I believe it can be done with a script written in Java. Creating a calculator would allow me to include additional cost options, such as an increased travel area fee. I also think that the addition of a Reviews page could help increase sales. It could either be managed locally (updating the page manually on a regular basis), or it could contain reviews embedded from outside sources (such as Yelp, Google+, HomeAdvisor, etc.).

References

C. (2018, July 17). How To Pick The Best Font For Your Website (Oct 2018). Retrieved October 3, 2018, from https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/designing-websites/pick-best-font-style-for-website/

Morrison, S., & Noyes, J. (2003). A comparison of two computer fonts: Serif versus ornate sans serif. Usability News, 5(2). Retrieved October 4, 2018, from http://psych.nyu.edu/pelli/papers/morrison2002serif.pdf

National Association of REALTORS. (2017). Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers of 2017 (October ed.). Washington, DC. Retrieved September 12, 2018, from https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/2017-profile-of-home-buyers-and-sellers-11-20-2017.pdf