Mixd
Solution driven creativity
Mixd develops UK's first multi co-buying website
October 18th 2006
Northallerton consultancy, Mixd, has designed and built SharingProperty.co.uk – a radical new website that enables total strangers to co-buy houses, boats, cars and other items. The project launched last month and is the brainchild of 28-year old entrepreneur Victoria Gamon, also from Northallerton
SharingProperty is the first UK website to fully develop the idea of shared ownership – enabling people to co-buy all sorts of items – from houses and cars to boats, holiday homes and even investments. It works by introducing potential buying partners via an anonymous email system. Initial registration is free, allowing a user to search the database for someone who meets their own criteria – once a match has been found users can take out a subscription membership to make the first contact that for a limited period is also free.
As well as facilitating introductions, SharingProperty.co.uk also offers a step-by-step guide to the whole process of co-ownership – from making initial contact to drawing up legal documents.
Phil Shackleton of Mixd says, “This was an exciting project for us as the concept of co-buying is still relatively new and a perfect application of net technology. We worked very closely with Victoria from the outset – not just in the visual identity but developing the concept of the build so that she could start to see how the technology would bring her ideas for SharingProperty to fruition.”
Victoria Gamon says, “The Mixd team have done a fantastic job designing and building SharingProperty and we are confident that the concept will grow rapidly in the coming months. It was particularly satisfying that we were able to access such high quality web support from right here on the doorstop in Northallerton!”
As with all of Mixd’s projects, SharingProperty is a fully accessible website that meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ‘Double AA’ standard. The site has been built using XHTML and CSS-P layout techniques to aid with search engine optimisation and accessibility. Extensive user testing was completed during all phases of the project to constantly refine and optimize the design, information architecture, functionality and content.
After just 5 weeks, the site has received well over 11,000 hits and has already built up a database of 100 users.