A Mobile Guide for geographically displaying estates listed for sale.

Abstract

Instead of displaying a simple list with the houses and apartments which are listed for sale, an alternative is to display them geographically in a map to get an overview of where they are located. To make it simple the map also has an icon of where you are located, so you know where you are according to the houses. A prototype of such a system with the most important functionality has been implemented. The system gives the user the option to choose different other facilities he or she wants to show in the map together with the apartments, such as schools and parking spaces etc. The system gives also short information of the different apartments when clicking on them, and the possibility to open the prospect of that specific apartment. The prototype has been evaluated by some experts from one of the largest estate agencies, together with a user- and a technical evaluation. The feedback from the experts has been very positive, and they are convinced that such a system will be very helpful for potential users. The response regarding the user-friendliness has also been good, except from some comments on too many confirmations needed when running the application. During the technical evaluation we got confirmed that a J2ME application not is directly portable between different devices without slightly adjustments.