In late October Scarab Design finished the extensive task of refreshing and rebuilding the Peter Lees Real Estate website.

The process began with redesigning the website interface to give it a fresh new polished appearance and the content management system was updated to use the latest version of Joomla! bringing with it new functionality and more security.

The next task was to custom build a component to integrate with their existing property listings system. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) was used to access the property listings data using a web service provided by ReNet. This resulted in seamless integration with the website and removed the need to rely on third party services provided by realestate.com.au for property listings.

The property listings pages features: a photo gallery, a Google Map showing the property location, and uses Google Street View to show the area that the property is located in. The listings also include the ability for visitors to share links on Facebook and Twitter to take advantage of the possibilities presented by viral marketing.

With the emerging popularity of iPhones and other smart phone technology a major consideration was access to property listings from mobile devices, for this reason peterlees.mobi was developed. This website provides a fast, cut down version of the property listings system built to be XHTML Mobile Profile compatible.

The final step in the project was to install an interactive touch screen computer in the reception area of the Peter Lees office. The touch screen has been configured to run a web browser in "kiosk mode" so that users can access the browser and nothing else.

A special version of the property listings component of the website was configured to work with the touch screen. This version has been set up to only allow access to the property listings component of the website and features larger form elements and links to make it easier to navigate using your finger on the touch screen.