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What can be improved?

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:33 pm
by alex.barylski
Not strictly technical (I know it doesn't validate, etc) but anything from a user perspective? We are not really concerned with mobile, etc. Average users who use IE are the target audience -- at least for now.

I did not design the site, so graphical changes are out of my league as well. Mostly information architecture, oragnization of information, general usability and SEO/SEF.

http://www.takebackyoursummer.com

Cheers,
Alex

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:12 pm
by Weirdan
  • links in the top menu lead to another domain
  • bullet list is too long - you could have split it to sublists and put them into accordion of some sort
  • green text "Get the most out of your backyard!" at the top left overlays the image - unreadable
  • there's a place to the right of the bullet list - yet you floated image into the list.
  • line spacing is too dense - it's only good in that list to the right with check marks
  • on the product page there's a blue link - but on the index page you have links in green
  • contact form has large fonts while other pages have small fonts
  • glossary has weird linespacing
  • history page: image has physical dimensions different from view dimension - it could have been resized prior to uploading to reduce file size
  • contact form submission results in the page without site template applied
  • location on actual Google map does not match the location on the static image
Overall: too much text, fonts are too small.

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:35 pm
by Eran
I did not design the site, so graphical changes are out of my league as well
You realize those things go hand in hand? a web designer must also have some understanding of UI and usability. probably not your responsibility though, but just saying

Offhand, minor non-graphical issues -
* Fonts are too small, especially headers
* For a site that supposedly advertises a product, there is no information on how to purchase. a phone number at the top-right portion of the screen is not enough, and outside of the normal reading path. Where is the call-to-action here?
* on second thought, I can't tell whether this site advertises a company or a product. The homepage seems focuses on a product but the site overall is a front for a company? this ambiguity is not good. the site needs a clearer focus
* continuing with the previous thought, if the site is a marketing front for a company, then the branding is bad. outside the logo and a minor link in the footer called "company history" (which actually leads to an about page - this should be clear and moved to the header) there is nothing immediate that makes it clear who or what is behind the site.
* are mosquitoes a good idea for the bullets? they invoke a negative feeling. how about something more branding related? that would probably require some graphics work though

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:42 pm
by pickle
  • Blue text under "Take back your summer!" seems out of place. I know there's blue in the logo, but only duplicating it in this one spot makes it look out of place
  • <h5> text is WAY too small. Should also be horizontally aligned with the mosquito graphic. Semantically, shouldn't they be <h2> instead?
  • Cut the list of things you can do with the product in half. We get it - there are lots of things you can do outdoors, inside your screen room.
  • The "Did you know" and "What our customers think" text is way too small. You need to look at the text size all over the site. Headers should be bigger than body text, and NOTHING should be 7.15px ("Resources" header on the Resources page).
  • Generally the site is laid out pretty well. There's too much text though, and not enough whitespace.

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:50 pm
by alex.barylski
You realize those things go hand in hand? a web designer must also have some understanding of UI and usability. probably not your responsibility though, but just saying
Not sure I follow. I personally make a distinction between a graphics designer and web designer and a web developer/programmer. I am neither designer, my area of interest/speciality has always been in design/development of software systems at the architectural/implementation level. I dabbled in everything in the projet, mostly due to time constraints and resource availability. No dought I could have spent more time on making the coed more semantically correct, focusing on user experience, but I'm already busy with a much larger web app with the same company, so the focus was narrow. Make it stick out on searches was one request, which in 2-3 weeks we've done OK landing on page 3-4 for Yahoo/Google for a few terms. I need more articl content or link backs to push the SEO much further.
For a site that supposedly advertises a product, there is no information on how to purchase
On the old site, there was an order form but it was just an HTML script that POST'ed to a sendmail type script so I scrapped it in favour of the contact form. What kind of "order now" informaiton would you suggest?

I recommended product videos, PDF's, etc...but ultimately this is out of my league, both in making the decision and/or investing the effort to make some worth reading.

If you can think of additional sales info, I would be happy to hear it and propose that as more content for the site
The homepage seems focuses on a product but the site overall is a front for a company? this ambiguity is not good. the site needs a clearer focus
No sales from the site, but to be honest I`m not totally sure myself, the project owner is always busy so his input is limited. As I understand it was just to inform people of the benefits of screen rooms, etc. Like a virtual brochure, I don`t think anyone expects to sell one online as Cadorath is primarily the manufacturing, not the re-sale. Informaiton for distributors and buyers I suppose.
continuing with the previous thought, if the site is a marketing front for a company, then the branding is bad. outside the logo and a minor link in the footer called "company history" (which actually leads to an about page - this should be clear and moved to the header) there is nothing immediate that makes it clear who or what is behind the site
Not a company, so much as a product. As a company they have a lot of commercial interests (realty, aerospace, etc) and web sites to reflect those niches, this site (as I understand) is solely to market the product, hence the lack of emphasis on the company info. As for the branding strategy, again, not my responsibility. I made some suggestions, some were implemented, others maybe not I don`t know.
are mosquitoes a good idea for the bullets? they invoke a negative feeling. how about something more branding related? that would probably require some graphics work though
That definetly is there to stay... :P I argued against that but ultimately it`s not my site and the clientele are not tech savvy developers who nit-pick, so my argument lost weight pretty quick. Mosquitoes here, are like birds, Manitoba is world famous for our massive mosquitoes, the stress on mostuitoes is important to their brand message I guess, seeing as screens keep bugs away. :)
Blue text under "Take back your summer!" seems out of place. I know there's blue in the logo, but only duplicating it in this one spot makes it look out of place
I wasn`t blown away by the designer they chose but they did better than I would have so I was happy to relenqusih control. High quality designers are extremely hard to find, especially in this city. Out of town outsourcing was out of the question, so they went with what they knew, someone who did work for them in the past.

Even if the design was iffy, people are after information, not flashy graphics (ie: Google).

The architecture of the information was primary concern, and making it SEO. The homepage beats our best competitor(s) in terms of keyword density, which was goal one. semantically the markup could be improved and much CSS moved into external CSS -- but time was limited. Building link backs in this industry is like gambling with monopoly. Every directory or article submission site implements nofollow links. Our competitors have been online a few years longer than us, and frequently their web sites are far worse, both in terms of design (frontpage 97) and information availability.

The homepage was intended to sell the sizzle, not the steak! The products page was intended to highlight more benefits of a screen room. I think-guess it was assumed people would be visiting the site after receiving a physical flyer in the mail...who cadorath is as a company, either does not matter or is already known.

Thanks for the feedback guys :)

Cheers,
Alex

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:50 pm
by Eran
I personally make a distinction between a graphics designer and web designer and a web developer/programmer.
Of course... but you're talking about usability, and that should be the role of the UI designer not the developer. The look and feel of the site has much more affect on usability than anything you can do on the backend. This includes information organization, white-spacing, font-sizes etc
If you can think of additional sales info, I would be happy to hear it and propose that as more content for the site
There is no information on where or how this product can be obtained. I'm not talking about an online store, but some references to retailers who carry it, selected stores etc. An educational site without a conversion objective will not achieve much as people have short-term memories.

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:24 am
by alex.barylski
There is no information on where or how this product can be obtained.
And what would you suggest specifically? There is a prominent phone number on every page, a contact form with a sales drop down (which has been used several times so far) and a partners link where one might find distributors.

Short of an "Order online" button somewhere I'm not sure what to do. There is no desire to post product pricing, shopping carts, etc. The idea from day one has been to use the website as a complementry sales tool, not a sales tool directly.

Screen rooms are not cheap and probably wouldn't sell very well online, so a sales rep is readily available to pick up where the web site leaves off (hence the phone, contact us, etc).

What or where would I place a more prominent 'contact' button?

I thought the "Have a question -- call us" was pretty clear -- although I realize many people are phone shy or not interested enough to other making a phone call, in which case secondary channels are desired (contact form, direct pricing sheets, etc).
some references to retailers who carry it, selected stores etc
The partners link offers a few resellers/contractors...

We manufacture the screen rooms and do not have inhouse displays, etc, so there is no store front. I imagine there might be some day soon, but that day isn't here yet.

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:56 am
by onion2k
Short of an "Order online" button somewhere I'm not sure what to do.
I honestly couldn't work out how to buy one. You need a "How to buy" page that clearly explains the process. Don't make the user think about how to buy. They won't. They'll go somewhere else.

Web Design 101: Users are stupid morons. Explain everything in the simplest way possible.

Re: What can be improved?

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:10 pm
by alex.barylski
onion2k: This is very true...I've experienced it many times in my faulted attempts to sell software through my own web site so I should know better, I guess sometimes, we all just need a push in the right direction.

You've all offered me some excellent advice, I'll be coming back for critical suggestions upon the release of my latest personal web site (in about 2-3 months). :D

Good thing about developers, we are all pedantic in some little way.

Not sure where I will place this sales order info, but were thinking in the showcase/gallery in red text to really notify the user of how to order -- our logic being that if someone is looking at picture -- they are probably interested enough to be looking for how to buy.

Cheers,
Alex