

Show HN: London flat-finding tool that shows commute times - calpaterson
http://flatnik.com/blog/2

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helen842000
Hey Cal,

I saw your recent post about asking for feedback. I check the Show HN
submissions regularly but I hadn't seen flatnik before. Thought I would drop
you some initial points from my first use.

I know London areas reasonably well by name but less so geographically. I
guess seasoned commuters would, but not someone new to living in London. I had
to keep hovering over the red neighbourhood icons to get the name up. It would
be good if each neighbourhood icon was the initial or first letters. That way
I'd know MV was Maida Vale, CT would be Camden Town. You will have repeating
letters (Kensington, Knightsbridge) but it would make it a lot easier to
naturally gravitate to roughly the right area.

When you click on the icons, some of the longer names force the words 'to
search' to be orphaned onto the next line of the button. (Whitechapel/Brick
Lane & Bethnal Green are two examples) You could take the words 'to search'
off.

Also there could be a button for 'Add All' - then folks could filter on
commute time at the end. That would really highlight the cost savings by
getting people to expand their search. It would be a no brainer if you were
considering two flats at 600 & 700 - probably served by the same tube stop,
same commute - just a few streets apart. Opening people up to new locations
could be really helpful!

Also, when I went through to the results page. They were neither ordered by
price or by commute. I think they go by advert age by default. However the
option to sort by price/commute would be nice.

Great project, will share it with my friends darn sarf :)

------
calpaterson
Hey, I'm the author (and this is a just-for-fun project). I'd really like to
hear any feedback you have, especially negative feedback! :)

~~~
rayhano
Really interesting work.

Comments:

1\. What did you use for the area polygons?

2\. Moving the pin obscures where the pin is exactly. It would be better to
centre the pin and move the map.

3\. The search results are obscured by ads... It makes it impossible to then
use the service (on ipad)

If you want to chat further: rayhan@rafiqomar.com

~~~
calpaterson
Thanks, glad you like it.

1\. I "borrowed" them from a tourism site :) I'm planning to replace them with
census "output areas" which should hopefully make more sense (and they won't
cross over)

2\. Yes, I think I need to rethink the workplace map. It's not easy to tell
what is unintuitive when you make it.

3\. Sorry, due to the way adwords works, it isn't easy to tell what ads will
look like before you put them live of the first time.

I'll send you an email after I finish work. Thanks for your interest!

