Dwela debuts new and improved site

Dwela, a newly formed home industry website, recently launched its new and improved website. Dwela is a first of its kind, home industry directory and social networking website. Dwela’s innovative website allows home industry professionals of all types to join Dwela for free. Membership benefits for the home industry professional include access to Dwela’s private, members-only forums, the ability to build a profile page about the pro’s business and create and maintain a professional blog.

Based on member feedback and a human experience report provided by human factors engineering group, TailGrab, the Dwela design team completely revamped the look and feel of the website as well as its navigation and information architecture. The design team was primarily concerned with addressing the criticism that the initial design was not “looking or acting” like a directory. As the Dwela business model calls for the public Dwela.com website to be a fully functional, optimized and user-friendly home industry directory, significant and substantial changes to the public website were made to facilitate increased usability and thematic consistency.

“It really didn’t take long to realize that we had missed the mark somewhat on our initial design,” said Josh Fuller, Dwela’s CEO. “The report that the human experience team provided us really just confirmed mine and others suspicions. Thankfully, we diagnosed and corrected the problems in less than thirty days.”

Among the changes is a more prominent search utility, a snapshot of the latest blog postings on the homepage, an easier and simpler navigation scheme and a section titled “Homeowner Tips” that will allow the homeowner to easily access information about a wide variety of home-related topics.

The feedback to the new website has been overwhelmingly positive. Dwela member, Anne Spagnoulo, says that “the new site is a huge improvement over the earlier one. While the first site looked fantastic, it didn’t seem to convey the fact that Dwela is a searchable, indexed directory for the home industry.” Other members have commented on increased usability, improved information flow and consistency and a more appropriate look and feel.

Membership in Dwela.com is open to most home industry professionals including realtors, general contractors, landscapers, mortgage lenders, interior designers, landscapers and more. Please visit the website for more information.

Jesse Chatham is Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for Dwela.com, a home industry directory and networking site.