What features make for an amazingly functional, customer-friendly public information website?
Analyzing your web traffic – Who uses your site? Where do they come from? How are they using your site? How much web traffic does your site generate? We believe you should track your site usage – all our sites utilize a Google analytics tracker. You will not only have full access to your web traffic data, but also receive a monthly summary report!
Clean layout, intuitive navigation, pleasing design – Can you think of three great products or websites that you love to use and why? Many assessor public information sites we see, often lack the end user’s perspective. We firmly believe in customer-centric product design and development. In addition to authoritative data, your website should also deliver an amazing user experience for your constituents.
Advanced search options – Do you have useful data that is not currently searchable? Assessor sites should be able to search properties by: owner name, address, parcel number, property name (signage), subdivision (including multiple phases), condos, recorded book/page, property use/type, foreclosures, vacant land, development stage, personal/business property, and other pertinent data you want to leverage. You might have to prepare your data to support advance search features. For example, linking personal property accounts to real estate parcels provides better search options.
Autocomplete, wildcard and search filters – Use autocomplete and wildcard features for a better user experience, and consider spatial search filters such as zipcode, neighborhoods, school district, jurisdiction, etc…for optimal location related queries.
SAY NO TO DATA IN UPPERCASE – Unless you are screaming at your users, don’t dump your data in all uppercase on your webpage. It is not only hard to read, but also can be annoying to the users.
Downloads data in a spreadsheet – One of the most useful features is to search and export/download the results into a spreadsheet format (csv, excel). Don’t deprive your users of this important feature.
Create print-ready mailing labels – A simple, yet useful feature is to have the ability to create pre-formatted mailing labels (preferably Avery 5160/8160) from search results. Users should have a choice to either pick the owner’s mailing address or the property’s physical address.
Visualize a pin map from search results – Another basic functionality is to have the ability to visualize selected data fr om the search results on a map. This feature is useful to visualize data clusters and analyze trends.
Showing pertinent data in the search results grid – With a little effort, one can easily show value-added data columns in the search results grid. For example, returning school zone with the sales search result, allows the user to sort data/export by school zone.
Customer feedback mechanism – Do you want your users to connect with you? Do you care about their feedback? If yes, then we recommend incorporating a simple customer feedback form on your site. But make sure to integrate the feedback with your organizational workflows, to ensure that someone follows up with the customer.
Ability to crowdsource information – Have you considered crowdsourcing information such as property photos, surveys, appraisals or have the users report data inaccuracies?
Custom estimators and calculators – Assessor sites must have tools such as property tax estimator, construction cost calculator and income model generator, to facilitate what if scenarios.
Sales search and comparable sales analysis – No assessor site is complete without a comprehensive sales search and sales analysis tools. Sales can be searched/filtered using transaction type, geographic locations, and other standard criteria. It is important identify arms length transactions in the sales results. A simple USPAP style comparable sales tool would be an excellent feature to offer.
Displaying data in proper units – We often see data not displayed in proper units. For example, land area can be displayed in both square feet and acres. Sales can be normalized to show price per square feet. Attention to details and understanding the industry matters.
Integration with external apps – It is fairly easy to integrate data from location specific content providers – Google street view, Oblique data viewers, MLS sites, map application – by passing the coordinates of a parcel. Don’t miss this convenient app integration.
Dis-aggregate numerical values where appropriate – Where applicable it is always convenient to breakdown values into more meaningful information – Show income pro forma to explain income value, taxes broken down per taxing authority instead of just showing the taxable value, show building sub areas to explain the total living area.
Location based information/amenities – Another useful feature is to show relevant location based information for a parcel/address. This could include nearby amenities, school districts, elected officials, census data, HOA information, etc…
Comparative Market Analysis / Neighborhood profiles – Showing nearby recent sales is a good feature. However, showing an aggregate market analysis of the sales at different levels of geography, and time scales, is an excellent feature. Be sure to include both median and average over the last 6 months and one year.
Easy print – One of the constant complains on a public facing site is the printing of the property record card in a clean, consistent format. Add an easy print feature with options to select data blocks on the printout.
Did we miss any other noteworthy features? Feel free to add it thru your comments.
Please email us at info@geomerchants.com if you want to see a live demo of the features listed above.
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