Company: LATCH
Year Built: 2013
Planet Kodiak tasks: Architecture, Design Implementation, Programming, Database design, Drupal Theme, eCommerce, Continuous Integration
Technologies Used: Drupal 7, PHP, MySQL, Git, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Bootstrap, Custom Drupal Theme, Data Migration, First Data, LinkedIn
LATCH is a service for finding well vetted, home service professionals that users can freely search to find any number of professionals in their community, with criteria specific to the users needs. This site is a competitor to sites such as Angie’s List, Realtor.com, Zillow among others.
PlanetKodiak completed this site originally in 2012, but the owners wanted to take their business in a new direction, so we rebuilt the site from the ground up. Although the design is similar to what was delivered in 2012, the workings under the hood are wholly new.
The system allows professionals, and even consumers, to register for an account which gives them a public profile. Users can pay for a subscription which gives them access to more features. Through a users profile, anyone can give a review. Among the options are attributes (such as Quality, Price, Professionalism etc.) that the user can specify for that professional as well as a 1-10 scale on the overall experience. These factor into search results which are all uniquely tailored to an individual’s preferences via that LATCH Algorithm.
The LATCH Algorithm is a powerful method by which users are able to specify the weight of different search parameters including proximity, referability, total reviews, years in business, and a selection of attributes as defined in their surveys (Price, Quality, On Time etc.).
The user-centric nature of this application made Drupal 7 an ideal candidate for the CMS. The entire site is self sustaining with user initiated on-ramping, automatic billing renewals, and public surveys that professionals can share out as they wish.
The system is quite large and built on Drupal’s extensive set of enterprise-ready modules. The site is a custom design and core, business functionality is based on a series of custom modules built exclusively for LATCH.
It was designed from PSD into a custom theme that utilizes many of Drupal 7′s newest features. With dozens of different templates, the site offers a rich experience for users to see that this is not only a viable alternative to places like Angie’s List, but a more streamlined experience as well.
