Ahhh, your long-awaited summer vacation is just around the corner. Yet planning the trip can be a big headache, especially if you are organizing a vacation for a group. PickPackGo is making it easier to begin your trip planning with a simple and visually pleasing way to find your next vacation rental in just a few clicks. Check it out!

Let’s say you are planning a family trip to Walt Disney World and want to find a vacation rental close by. Not sure what to type in the search box? Or do you prefer to quickly click to results? Simple. Just select Florida on the homepage map.

You are now on the browse page, looking at a map of Florida. We’ve already done some work behind the scenes to map links to regions with homes, as well as create a list of popular areas and attractions. Now just click Orlando to view available listings close to Disney World.

Voila! You are presented with slides of high-quality Disney Orlando vacation rentals. Now you can easily compare properties in the search results and book one right here online.

We are continually working on features that make your online vacation rental search a better experience all around. Stay tuned…

Posted: March 24th, 2008 under Site design, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

Previous blog entries have discussed strategies for sorting through the properties on PickPackGo and narrowing in on just the right vacation home. Although we offer helpful search refinement tools, only you can pick the single, perfect home for you by weighing various factors of the remaining properties. You also might need some help from friends or family in making your final decision. That’s where our “Saved/Viewed” functionality (what is sometimes called “Favorites”) can help you.

See which properties you’ve viewed:
As you search PickPackGo for just the right property, you typically click on the “full details” link (or the large photo) to find more detailed information about properties that look like good candidates. When you do this, we automatically add those properties to your “Saved/Viewed” properties list.

Save your favorite properties:
Properties of particular interest can be marked as “Saved,” and they will always appear at the front of your “Saved/Viewed” list. You can easily add, compare, or remove a property from your “Saved/Viewed” page.

Compare properties:
With all of your favorite properties in one place, you can easily compare your choices. The “Overview,” “Availability,” and “Map” tabs in the preview area will stay selected as you click on other property slides, allowing you to quickly compare detailed information.

Share your choices:
Now comes the best part. When you have narrowed your favorite properties down to the few top contenders, get some input from friends and/or family who may be staying at the property with you. You can show them all of your favorite properties together.

If you have additional ideas or suggestions on how to facilitate sharing and comparing properties, please add a comment below.

Posted: January 4th, 2008 under Site design, Vacation Homes, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

As our site continues to grow and we gain more online exposure, a few of our users have written in to tell us what they think about our site.

Frequent family traveler and technology product manager, Jen was kind enough to share:

• Overall I really like the design. It’s very clean and lightweight and the site performance is pretty impressive given how many images you are loading.
• The map tab didn’t seem to work for the few properties I selected.
• I actually like seeing the outside pictures of the house…with the more details providing inside shots. Perhaps that’s (because) going to a new place, I won’t know how to recognize the house upon arrival without a picture.
• Personally, I would never rent a place where no pictures were provided.

As Jen points out, she’ll make quick decisions about a property based on photos and what she can see on the map. So it is in the best interest of property managers and owners to represent their vacation rentals with clear and visually descriptive photos, as well as provide accurate location information, so we can map their properties.

Mapped results for a search in Orlando:

The design of our site, with its open and clean layout, helps show our properties in a way that users can quickly navigate to find their ideal vacation rental. We are currently working on “Property Listing Tips” that will help managers and owners get the most out of their listings. And for renters, we will soon be implementing “Help Bubbles” to highlight some of our enhanced features on the site.

Thanks for this additional feedback:

• “I like the smooth image map fading, further more nice use of colors and text and the overall use of images.” –”Vexed” reviewed us on Designsnack.com
• “I really like the site design. I think you guys did a great job of simplifying the listing sign-up process and the overall look of the site is great.” - jc
• “I’m a designer and I think your site looks very clean, and easy to read and navigate. Two thumbs up.” Brenda, Academy of Art University

We love to get feedback, comments and suggestions about our site. Keep ‘em coming.

Posted: December 7th, 2007 under Property Management, Site design.
Comments: none

It’s official. We’ve only been live a short while and we’ve already received our first award. We’re super excited about what we have built, and about making the best experience of renting a vacation home easier and safer for renters and property managers.

Since I am the designer here, at PickPackGo, it was up to me to take the lead in creating our site look and feel. Our team approached our site design knowing that today’s web users want fast, relevant information delivered in easily discernible ways or we’ll lose them. When we looked at other online vacation travel sites, they fell short—most offering drab, cluttered, text-heavy sites that can be very frustrating to navigate. Users deserve better.

Branding: In order to successfully meet travelers’ needs, we’ve designed a site where our users can easily find, compare and rent vacation homes. Our brand is simple. A warm, welcoming color treatment and use of fun font types sets us apart in an otherwise corporate, predictable sites of our industry.

Design: Our site consists of clean, airy page layouts, easy-to-read large fonts, bright, bold colors and a splash of fun graphics such as in the following page examples:

Personable approach: It was also important for us to bring a down-home element to our site. What better way than City Hosts who are locals in their cities? We wanted this area to be informative, as well as upbeat and inviting, so I introduced picturesque avatars for each city, as well as a City Host personality. When we add your city, let me what ideas you have for your city’s avatar.

Stay tuned: Since our launch, we have been steeped in testing and revisions, and we are working on implementing new features such as sharing favorites and reviews. Come back soon and see for yourself.

We hope you’ll find our site refreshingly easy to navigate—and even enjoyable. We know you just want to find your vacation rental and be done with it. Me, too. As we continue to improve our site design, I welcome input on what you would like to see or how we can make it better!

Posted: October 22nd, 2007 under Site design.
Comments: none