I purchased my iGuide system at the beginning of the pandemic and frankly I think I would have gone out of business without it. Customers clambered for its ability to capture all aspects of a site/home and deliver it to the public. I have found now that many of my older customers “don’t like” or “hate” these types of tours. The floor plan is still wanted for the some of them but the visuals are confusing to many. I am writing this note because I feel the visual navigation needs an overhaul, I remember the old days of when Quicktime was the thing to use and then iPix was everywhere. Those interfaces would send you spinning into the floor or the ceiling and many would complain of being nauseous. Things are much better today but I feel there is a lot more room for improvement. There are some aspects of the control of the visuals are a complete fail and some areas that just need to be tweaked.
Many users don’t know that the best way to navigate the interface is to click on the floor in front of where you are in order to advance to the next closest node. Instead they click ahead and they are launched across the room to find themselves in another part of the house staring at a wall. (in some cases) I think more than a few people close the window at this point. This needs to be corrected so that the advancement is to the next closest camera node so the movement is more like walking. This is less likely turn off the viewer that isn’t used to the interface. Should a user be forced to walk out the room the way they came in?? Also I wonder if am more spongy “grabber” would make things better? a rapid movement of the mouse brings a very fast movement of the image and that isn’t always the intention of the viewer. They just don’t have good control of their mouse/finger movement.
I don’t know what the next evolution of this technology is but I think bringing back those viewers that we have lost should be a major priority. I would love to say to many of them, “hey try out the iGuide again there has been a major update to the interface that I think you’re going to like”
I agree. I am getting the same feedback on the few tours I’ve done. “Oh this looks cool but how do you…?” “Why is it jumping…?”
Case in point… from an email today.
“Hi Geoff,
We are now requesting for you to do floorplan for this property please. Is that okay?
So that would be still images and floorplan only, no iguide.
Thanks,“
I have a totally different outlook on this. Maybe it’s because I come from the Matterport side of things and the iGUIDE is a VAST improvement (from a non-tech point of view) from where we came from. In fact, so many people like iGUIDE better we have completely stopped offering MP as an option.
Now we don’t do an iGUIDE on every listing ( I wish we did) but in the last 2 months my requests for iGUIDE have tripled now that homes are not selling the same day they were listed. Just yesterday I picked up 4 new jobs and 2 of them specifically asked for iGUIDES. So it stands that YMMV and be warned… when this portion of the economy does slow down, some Realtors are going to point fingers at the REP trying to blame us for the homes not selling.
Al has a good general point; I support. The market goes through cycles…. When fast paced, real estate clients tend to want the basics. When the market slows down they consider the next marketing tool available to “attract a prospect”.
For me, I charge more for a iGuide floor plan than a 360 iGuide. The overhead is different & takes more time. So I take those requests when they happen. It still means the client remembers my name and my range of services. I am here to have the various tools to attract prospects. Just completing a 7,000 sqft estate with SEO website, high-end images, virtual staging & reconstruction, short video, - and an “iGuide floorplan” of the entire space so prospects can understand the layout. No VR360 because the estate is too large for VR. - Sharing.