RealEstate.co.nz, New Zealand’s national real estate search site, learned a tough lesson this week. After flipping the switch on a brand new redesign of their website, users revolted and demanded the old site back. After much deliberation, the search portal capitulated and decided to reestablish the former version of the site.
If you’ve ever gone through a major site overall, I’m sure you can sympathize.
Change is hard. Repeat visitors are likely going to react viscerally to a new look and feel. Traffic might even drop as users stomp off to their corners like petulant children.
Emails, tweets, and blog comments can amplify the discontent. The noise can become overwhelming.
As a site owner, all of this can be petrifying. So what can you to do mitigate this?
1. Establish a beta period
Inman reported last week that Move.com was launching new a Realtor.com in Beta in the next few weeks. If you’re planning a major redesign, this is the way to do it. Hold a closed beta and let a select group of users take your new baby for test ride. Slowly open up the sample size.
2. Test, test, test
Google’s redesigned UI went live last week. But it wasn’t really a surprise. Variations of the new look had been visible to many for months leading up to the launch. During this testing phase, the search giant was presumably gathering all kinds data on users’ interactions and making subtle tweaks to ensure the best results.
3. Real people, real feedback
In last week’s 1000watt Spotlight newsletter we highlighted UserTesting.com – a service that lets you solicit feedback from real users.
(Have you signed up for Spotlight yet?)
This is an often overlooked and critically important step. None of us can function in a bubble. Listening to feedback during the first two steps is all-important and pretty easy to do these days. Services like KissInsights or 4q can help you quickly and easily gather the necessary intelligence to make the right decisions.
Yet you’ll still going run into roadblocks.
So sometimes you just have to lead. Just ask Facebook, which has undergone more facelifts than Heidi Montag in the last few years. If you believe in your work, keep marching forward.
Eventually, your users will catch up with you. The critiques level off. People adjust as they learn the new site.
Life gets back to normal.
And then it’s time to start planning for the next version.
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If everyone listened to the users when they got upset we would still be back on Facebook 1.0.
Reminds me of my favorite saying, “if it is not broke, break it and make it better”
Joel
Wise council. As the CEO of realestate.co.nz I have been challenged every day by the thought of what could we have done differently or better.
We certainly tested; we certainly shared the site with a broad range of users; we certainly founded the new site around extensive qualitative user research and critical competitive analysis.
Having said all of that. We did have issues – both technical and operational. There were blindingly obvious things that hit us day one that we collectively went “daah – how did we not foresee that”.
The feedback came thick and fast and I can only be satisfied that we had spent the past 3 years developing an open communication channel through the Unconditional blog and other social media tools so that we could listen and respond. I put my self in the role of Chief communicator, handling (as I do all blog comments), as well as all the emails that came in. I wanted to be seen as a business and service that was concerned and was listening.
The decision we have taken is to roll back the former site – then re-assess the platform structure, architecture and usability feedback on the site. We are committed to the new site and the functionality, it will be re-launched.
We are though in a very competitive business; relying as we do on a user base to drive the traffic views to generate the subscription from real estate companies and we cannot be ignorant of how close that one click away from obscurity can be on the web. Especially when people have a sense of change that is a bit too big a change.
Alistair Helm
CEO – Realestate.co.nz
Alistair – I think you’re doing the right thing here. Pushing the envelope always comes with its challenges. Listening and communicating with your users like you’ve done is the most important thing we can take away from all of this.
Despite the hiccup I know you’ll come out stronger through the process.
I can’t wait to see the new and improved RealEstate.co.nz sometime soon!
The only constant is change. It is human nature to be upset when change occurs but it is inevitable.
People just don’t like change, it’s too difficult. It’s great that they were able to hear the feedback from the consumers and react to it.
Well said…and it hits home! We have been in beta for awhile and still see changes weekly…most from user and agent feedback…as I’m sure you’re aware!
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[...] a new design for their search results pages last week, and while we’re strong advocates that websites should lead their users towards new experiences, this one feels like a [...]