Audley Villages is the UK’s market leader in the build and management of luxury retirement properties, but their website didn’t reflect that position. It was out of date and difficult to use for their older audience.
When Audley asked Versantus to take over from their previous agency to help them increase sales of their properties, they initially asked us to handle the back-end technical side of the build. However, after spending significant time working with their team and users to test different ideas, we delivered a significantly improved front-end design too.
As a property site for an older audience who primarily uses iPad, we needed to create a criteria search feature that felt easy to use, despite the multiple filters and options. Clever user-interface design was key.
“When I joined Audley, the company was focused on traditional marketing. Our audience wasn’t tech savvy at that time but, as that’s changed, it’s become more important to boost our digital presence, try new things and be more proactive online for our users,” explained Samantha Happe, Digital Marketing Manager at Audley.
We began with the basic principles and carried out a ground-up review and rebuild process.
Taking inspiration from AirBnB, Rightmove and Zoopla, we settled on new formula for property search that would present complex information in a straightforward, intuitive way. We added custom-designed iconography to help people discover property features more easily, which turned that basic website into a sophisticated sales tool for the Audley team.
The user experience is now seamless on desktop and mobile.
