Reviewing the “shortlist” feature on www.makaan.com web portal.

A potential house seeker is someone who would like to get rid of the burden of house hunting as soon as possible. For that its obvious he compares and analysis options available to him on various sites offering real estate services. One such popular website is www.makaan.com

Being one of the most successful indian sites in real estate offering i have not really seen much progress when it comes to swift user experience and usability on the website.

On reaching the listing page the first thing thats pushed on your face is the cluttered layout. The density of elements is not divided in an easy to digest format and makes you feel claustrophobic in the first go itself. While we go through the listing the if the user is deprived of the option to add any property to its list of favorites. That being said from the listing page onwards the user is actually made to go through the pain of “discovering” the add to favorites or say shortlist property option for any property the user wishes to shortlist. And lets assume somehow if the user stumbles upon the SHORTLIST option on click an irrelevant modal pops open which forces a user to enter details which are completely pointless to be asked at that moment. It would make more sense if they asked this info when the user is trying to get in touch with the seller of the property as the user is more likely to share information at that point and it also builds a sense of credibility as a brand  in the eyes of the user. Some other real estate portals have handled this scenario in a much better way compared to www.makaan.com 

Review by

Shaheena Attarwala (UX & Usability specialist Mumbai)