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Project Overview

Domain.com.au has built a comprehensive range of native mobile apps for Australia's property buyers, sellers and renters. We have been first to market for property portals in providing iphone, ipad, and windows 7 apps, and also have a fantastic Android App in market.
In total these apps have been downloaded over 550,000 times.

Organisation

Fairfax Media

Team

James Fitzgerald, Irene Ongkowidjaja, Elizabeth Wilton, Tanya Maddalena, Maty Paule, Jason Bayly, Jasmina Tomljanovic, Adi Widodo, Aurelien Garreau, Geeta Obireddy, Virgilio Neto, Daniel Kang, Philip Kewley, Payal Thakare

Project Brief

Searching for a new home is very much an exercise that has been crying out for a fantastic set of tools to use on the road. Domain.com.au set out to provide an answer to this, and to help turn what can be a sometimes painful exercise into a far more pleasurable one.
We set out to build a range of world class native apps across key mobile products, each app specifically tailored to the device and the usability features of each device. We have succeeded in doing this, and have released world class apps across:
- ipad
- iphone
- android
- windows 7 mobile
These apps have been so widely acclaimed that Apple have featured our iphone app in its TVC campaigns, our iPad app was 'app of the week' in its very first week of launch, and our Windows 7 mobile was showcased as a best in class example by Microsoft at it's 2010 conference.
We have seen our audience engagement improve dramatically through use of our mobile apps, with each user viewing approx x4 more properties per session of their apps in comparison to the website.
Our user feedback continues to be fantastic, and we continually improve each of our products according to the suggestions from our loyal users.

Project Innovation / Need

We decided from the outset that each app needed to suit its native environment, but also provide great tools that actually help ease the pain of a weekend's property search.
Some tools to do this include:
- shortlisting properties as favourties
- 'inspection planner' for those properties shortlisted, that allows the user to plan their viewing schedule, organised chronologically with directions
- a moving guide on our iphone app that helps a user plan their move by week, a guide to help monitor their progress as the day of the move approach, as well as articles to help inform
- map based interface with our iPad app that allows the user to quickly move around and drill down into areas or property types
- 'around me' function on the iPad app to show what properties are on the market, or recently sold, around you right now.
- syncing back to your domain.com.au account so that your favourties and shortlists are always available regardless of whether your accessing domain from your laptop, iphone or ipad.

User Experience

Each of our products are unique when compared against one another, utilising the design and usability aspects specifically designed for each device. This has lead us to think innovatively on how we present key functions (like search) and information (like images, maps) to users across each device, always appreciating the user experience of each device and the expectation that this has installed in the user.
Some highlights include:
- our Windows 7 app is a great example of Windows 'panaroma' user experience
- our map based interface for the ipad and using this as the primary search tool
- our use of google maps within apps to help navigate the user to a property
- each app always adheres to best practise within its own operating environment
- easy planning of a users weekend viewing and favourties

Project Marketing

We always look to work with each platform manufacturer to ensure we build a solid partnership in promoting one another.
For our iphone, we wanted to provide an app that best showcased the range of Apple's OS, and by working with them we were fortunate to receive inclusion in a iphone TVC campaign.
Likewise with our iPad and Windows 7, we have been showcased by the App Store and Microsoft respectively thanks to the quality of our apps.
We have also promoted our apps with advertising with the Sydney Morning Herald and other Fairfax publications both print and online.
Our marketing strategy is to showcase the full extent of domain.com.au's mobile suite rather than individual components of it, however when we launch a new app we do create buzz around it naturally by focusing on it specifically.
Our intention is to always showcase to our users that they can take Domain.com.au with them wherever they go, keeping Domain in their pocket for whenever they need it, not just when they are at their desktop computer.