Interview with Doug on Evolving Ideas blog
After using ShackPrices and emailing us a couple of questions, Astha Parmar decided to interview Doug to find out more about how ShackPrices came to be and how it works behind the scenes. She highlighted my favorite quote:
I like to believe that a year from now we’ll be better off if we spend most of our time improving the site and letting people discover it on their own, rather than letting the site stagnate while we spend our time trying to market it.
Update: Here’s a link to the story if you were hoping to read more.
Join the discussion »- February 14th, 2007
- by Galen
- Interface Design
‘My ShackPrices’ layout update
‘My ShackPrices’ received a little update earlier this week. Not only has the property list layout been updated for easier perusal, but a few more options have been added to your fingertips, allowing you to view each property on the map, view the property details, as well as what’s nearby!
Additionally, we’ve highlighted (with green) the ability for you to refine your search even more, such as by the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, lot sizes, and more! While this is not a new feature, we’ve just made it a little more apparent that it’s there. Be sure to look for it under the text search.
Join the discussion »- February 13th, 2007
- by Galen
- Features, Interface Design, New Features
Saved properties, now with 50% more stars
I was busy dealing with boring paperwork stuff last week, but Doug was cranking out features like a madman. They’ve been coming so quickly that we haven’t been able to let you, our dedicated users, know about them.
On to the feature of the day: your saved properties now show up with a neato little star on the map, which means you don’t have to click on the house to remember if that house is the one that you saved – you can just see it there. We also just added stars alongside the listing summaries down the left side of the map. Click to save, click again to unsave. I really like this feature – it extends our “info at a glance” map marker styling so you can quickly get back to a saved property if you’re looking for it.
Join the discussion »A new designer!
The ShackPrices team grew by nearly 50% a week and a half ago when Seattle Art Institute student Shaun Grady showed up for his first day of his internship with us. We’re really excited to have him helping us make our design and css (web page styling) first rate.
Shaun will be blogging about some of the projects he’s working on here. We hope you find it informative.
Join the discussion »- February 8th, 2007
- by Galen
- Interface Design, New Features, ShackPrices
Address and Listing number search
Whenever Doug and I show people ShackPrices, they sit down and begin typing their address into the search box, causing us to apologetically explain that, while ShackPrices is powerful, it can only send you to neighborhoods, cities, and zip codes (did you know that you can type a neighborhood name in the search box?).
Today ShackPrices has become a little smarter. You can now search for an address or a listing number and the gerbils in our server will look it up in their tiny gerbil atlases and send you to that address. Virtually and (nearly) instantly! If there’s a house for sale at that address, we’ll let you know, otherwise we show you the homes nearby.
Does it work the way you want it to? Let us know!
Join the discussion »