I though that the blue stripes were buttons... Silly I know, but you did ask for feedback!

IMO the blue header bg is completely wrong - they do look like buttons, not only that they look like the current sites buttons. The whole impression is clean and technical; is this what you're after for selling people a place to call home (albeit rental).

It's personal taste but the text-align:center on that first heading screws with me too.

Also, on usability, when arriving at the site I'm thinking you'll not have anything in my area ... which is presumably the big problem with such sites, seeding them. So, perhaps you'd consider putting your strap line inside the header and having an optionally displayed "we have 234 rentals near you" or something; sniff IP and show it went it's over a threshold.

Thanks for the feedback.

The headers are meant to look highlighted, rather than like buttons, I really need to think about this. Personally, I thought they looked good, but if it's causing usability issues, then they need updating.

You're right, we have the classic chicken and egg problem, but we're focusing on landlords for now. Love the idea about pre-searching for users. Wouldn't want it to impact page load times though, so perhaps it could be a client side call once the page has loaded. The one issue is that people may not search for properties in their current location - but it's a starting point.

Not silly at all, thanks for the feedback! Will need to think about how to make them seem less button-like.

Perhaps highlighting the "learn more" buttons will make it clearer what our buttons are meant to look like.

Yes, I think this will help a lot. Maybe make the blue bars less prominent, while increasing the prominence of the 'learn more' buttons? At the moment, the learn more buttons don't 'jump out' at me when I view the page. As the blue bars are the only really colourful things on the page, they look like they should be CTAs.

The Copyhackers book has an interesting section on buttons (preview here: http://www.copyhackers.com/web-writing-ebook-sample/). I'm not involved with Copyhackers, but I read the book this weekend and found it very interesting.

Thanks for the suggestions! I've updated the buttons, but I need to think of a nice way to make the blue title's less prominent. Hopefully that will improve things.

I've seen copy hackers mentioned, but am yet to read it myself. Will take a look ASAP, and see what insights I can garner. Thanks again.

I love this site actually - wish there was something like this in Australia! Are you planning on adding links to the tenants and landlord pages? Links to the searches from within the text would be really good - I looked for some in the text, but couldn't find anything.

Overall, the site is fast to use, now that the button issue is largely fixed it's easy to navigate. Question though - why make the headings with a solid blue colour? Seems a bit jarring... wouldn't a bold heading do just as well?

Another thing: If there were more links to dive right into searches at https://www.openrent.co.uk/Tenants this would be grand. As a suggestion, a standard link to the "Browse properties by location or by commute time" page would be great, and perhaps consider making the image into a link also.

One last thing: the grey text on white background is OK - but it would be better to make it a little less light. It can make legibility a problem for some folks.

Overall though, love the site - great work!

Edit: one more idea... why not make the link to the blog more prominent? Right now it's right at the bottom alongside the legalese that almost nobody looks at. Blogging may be a pretty good way of getting repeat business. It looks like you've got some pretty decent blog posts already, why not highlight this to show that you are adding content all the time? Just a thought :-)

> I love this site actually - wish there was something like this in Australia!

Thanks, we're launching very soon, and if all goes VERY well, we'd love to expand into Australia!

> Are you planning on adding links to the tenants and landlord pages? Links to the searches from within the text would be really good - I looked for some in the text, but couldn't find anything.

Great suggestion. I will put in some example searches. We have a different concept for our tenant and landlord page in the works, so I might hold off a couple of days.

> Overall, the site is fast to use, now that the button issue is largely fixed it's easy to navigate. Question though - why make the headings with a solid blue colour? Seems a bit jarring... wouldn't a bold heading do just as well?

It was just an aesthetic thing, but have definitely taken your feedback on board.

> One last thing: the grey text on white background is OK - but it would be better to make it a little less light. It can make legibility a problem for some folks.

Point taken, and unfortunately with greys, a lot comes down to your monitor. Have done my best to ensure it looks good on all monitors, but will keep trying.

> Why not make the link to the blog more prominent? Right now it's right at the bottom alongside the legalese that almost nobody looks at. Blogging may be a pretty good way of getting repeat business. It looks like you've got some pretty decent blog posts already, why not highlight this to show that you are adding content all the time? Just a thought :-)

My co-founder will love to hear this (he wrote the posts), so will suggest it. We just don't want the top links getting too numerous and overwhelming, hence the current set up. I think you're right though, it makes sense to move it to the top!

> Overall though, love the site - great work!

Thanks again for looking over it, much appreciated. Look forward to having you as our first Aussie customer in 6-12 months!

I would ditch the blue, I agree with the people above, they look like buttons and are very distracting.

Also, make your text boxes bigger, you have all of this large text surrounding them, why not scale them appropriately as well?

Thanks for taking a look, I'm definitely going to rethink the headings.

Will look at the input boxes more carefully, they're currently just default bootstrap size, but I see your point.

Is this meant to be the home page, or a landing page for geting sign-ups?

That is a good point. This is going to act as both for now if we don't know the source of the traffic.

If we know the user is a landlord or a tenant, we will send them to their sub-pages:

https://www.openrent.co.uk/Tenants

https://www.openrent.co.uk/Landlords

If you are having this act as both then you need to differentiate the buttons. They look too much like your top banner. I would suggest taking some of the shine off of your top banner and changing your buttons to be green to match you current design, or orange to really standout.

Thanks again for the comments.

I'm hoping when I improve the situation with the headers, the call's to action will stand out a little better. Otherwise, as you say, I will introduce another colour to the homepage (green seems sensible!).